The Silence

A lot of people are saying this is a rip off of A Quiet Place... that is totally incorrect actually. If anything A Quiet Place and Birdbox ripped off the premise from the 2015 book The Silence by Tim Lebbon. Do some research people, there have been numerous articles that state as much.

As far as the movie... a middle of the road decent time killer, it held my interest. It could have been much more in the right hands. I thought the acting was on par with the material the actors had to work with. CGI was lax and the situations the family found themselves in could have been orchestrated to be much more complex and dramatized. This is why A Quiet Place excelled.

People try entirely too hard to figure out what's wrong with a movie rather than just enjoy it. Don't go into every movie expecting it to be the best movie ever and perhaps you won't be so disappointed. Few movies deserve a 1 or 2 rating, just as few as deserve a 9 or 10.

In general, the movie is 'OK', although I'd recommend drinking while you do, so that you are less sober toward the end of the movie.

The acting doesn't spoil the movie. Quite the opposite, it's good. What makes the movie troublesome is how shallow and poorly thought through the storyline is. So 'Vesps' are blind and orient only by sound. The hard reality is that they would die outside in the wild. Animals would make sounds and all be wiped out. Sounds are everywhere; the wind blows = sound. Water flowing = sound.

Also they are found in a cave and then in short order (weeks) the USA is decimated... it is not possible for a species that size to reproduce so rapidly as to cause that. Biology is still subject to the laws of physics and you just cannot give birth to that many creatures in that short a time period. The material that makes them has to come from somewhere... and that just takes time.

And then the seeming inability of anyone in government to coordinate any resistance when quite ordinary people figure out the weakness instantly? I know movies are about the suspension of disbelief, but some plots really push this a little too far...Just put up sirens, nets etc.

But that is actually nothing compared to the last third of the movie when the 'nut jobs' enter the scene (the reverend of the cult).... what the actual f..k? Up to that point the movie was 'so-so', but that just pushed the movie from 6-7/10 stars to 4/10. From Dusk till Dawn handled the plot-break rather well. But this movie didn't.

Based on the concept I was rather surprised that Netflix would venture into material so similiar to one of their other films (A Quiet Place) and so shockingly fast. I can however say this is a different movie altogether, though not really in good way.

Early on I was gripped, fantastically made and looking film where Tucci is on the best form I've seen him since The Lovely Bones (2009). This I thought was going to be something really special, but alas the quality dipped pretty hardcore in the last act.

It tells the story of small winged creatures that begin to besiege the world in a near apocalyptic event. They respond only to sound so the trick is silence (See where the Quiet Place comparison comes in?). The film follows a family surviving in this world, led by father Tucci and daughter played by Kiernan "Sabrina" Shipka.

The cast deliver, the sfx are passable and the whole thing is well constructed but religion takes the stage and ruins the film. Despite being a near theocratic nation I'm still amazed how critical Hollywood usually is over religion and The Silence is no different. It takes a hyper realistic angle here with the religious's interpretation of the incident and it's positively chilling because it's so very believable.

I wish they hadn't gone down that route, though realistic it made for uncomfortable viewing and led the movie to a satisfying yet sudden and rather incomplete finale.

The Silence should/could have been an outstanding film but instead came out as a real disappointment.

The Good:

Tucci is on top form

Some solid ideas

The Bad:

Certain flaws in logic and consistency

Goes in an uncomfortable direction

The machine must be fed - The Silence is an okay movie made for a mass audience, and as all those pay-channels and whatever channels need "stuff" to air, the need for an endless stream of new shows and movies is great. This simply results to that immense output of mediocre to underachieving movies/shows: quantity rules our days and not quality.

Anyway, with the same cast and the same production but a better and more careful composed script and directing, this movie could have been a really good one.

The Silence: only recommendable for the aficionado of the genre (post-apocalypse with alien/monsters), and only if you really got nothing else on the plate.

Overall this is a decent enough time killer. It's got a good cast, and some wonderful music and scenes. The problem is the story as a whole.

The "monsters" made little sense in terms of the threat the movie wanted to make them portray. Not much thought was put into them other than "we need a monster". While they might be decent as a "Pitch Black" style swarm monster on a small scale, they do not work for what the movie intended. There's just so many things wrong with them.

Add to that the incredibly bad ending, that was clearly a rush job and honestly added nothing to the movie. It was clearly a case of the writers trying to sound wise and simply failing horribly.

This is a movie you can waste a bored afternoon watching, but there's far better ones out there.