Is this prequel as good as the other two films? The tag line for this one is “Experience the day the world went quiet.” The audience in our screening made this a really quiet place, too. There was not a peep heard once the aliens landed. But no spoilers here.
Director Michael Sarnoski created the story with John Krasinski and wrote it with he and Bryan Wood. As with the first two films, there isn’t a whole lot of dialogue, just mouthing words and whispers. The challenge for the actors is to tell their ultimate story of deathly fear using only facial expressions, eyes and gestures. Nyongo’s wide eyes and gaping mouth do it best.
Nyong’o carries this film. As Samira, known as Sam, she plays a woman living in pain in hospice who has given up on life. When her nurse, Reuben (Alex Wolff) entreats her to go on a field trip to New York City with other patients, she’s reluctant, but bribed with the promise of a slice of her favorite pizza in Harlem. She grabs her companion cat, Frodo to go along. Once they’re in the theater, all hell breaks loose, as the aliens we know from the previous episodes land on Earth and begin raining death on the city.
An explosion knocks Sam out and when she awakes, a man named Henri (Djimon Hounsou) who was with his family, signals Sam to be quiet. We know noise is what attracts the aliens from seeing the other films, now they do too. Sound equals death. From then on it’s a matter of staying quiet and aware. Reuben and Henri try to help, but Sam is hellbent on keeping Frodo safe, even when this mellow cat takes off. Nothing seems to bother that cat. Point of interest, Nyong’o was terrified of cats and had to work with a feline trainer to bond with Frodo (played by 2 cats). Now she adores them and adopted one of her own.
Hard to keep quiet in a “city that never sleeps.” NYC has to go from the loudest place in the world to complete silence for people to survive. Sarnoski uses fire, crashes, explosions and more àla Executive Producer Michael Bay, to transform New York City into a hellscape of rubble, burned out vehicles and blood spattered walls and windows. Sarnoski shoots a mass of extras in this huge production running through the streets. Of course, Sarnoski points to two creatures who know how to survive any apocalypse: rats and cockroaches.
When Frodo gets lost, Sam goes hot on the trail, bumping into a lost young man, Eric, (Joseph Quinn), a law school student from England. He shadows Sam, like a puppy dog, slowly forming a bond, both trying to learn how to survive. Quinn seems older than a law student and not very helpful or good under pressure.
For the last part of the film, Sam and Eric are in constant motion and mortal terror, looking for safety. As with most horror movies, they make some very bad decisions putting themselves in harms way instead of giving themselves, and the audience, a respite. You can feel the tension in the theater as Sam and Eric run trying to hide from the ravenous beasts.
The conceptualization of these aliens don’t break much new ground from those we’ve seen many times before, especially in the Aliens series.
Director Sarnoski and Krasinski use Sam’s story to elevate the excellent character driven emotion Lupito Nyong’o brings to the camera. Day One is exhausting and somewhat entertaining, so we’ll give this prequel a not too loud cheer.
Paramount 1 Hour 40 Minutes PG-13
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