For reasons never made clear, a roving posse of sightless and sharp-eared but otherwise cookie-cutter-quality Hollywood aliens zeros in on a pleasant young couple and their three children, looking to emulsify anything that makes a sound. A note on an eraser board establishes the existence of but three of the spindly-legged creatures with the impressive auditory range. No matter: within seconds of the littlest boy’s toy plane emitting a beep, it’s monster-on-the-spot and splat! No more Junior. Flash-forward about a year: the couple is once again with child. (Did it ever dawn on these two that now might not be the best time to bring another heir to adversity into the world?) Bland characters and jump-scares keep it moving until an eleventh hour inconsistency has the monster coming down with a slight case of selective-hearing. John Krasinski writes, directs, and stars opposite his off-screen wife, Emily Blunt, but when it comes to pure storytelling, deaf actress Millicent Simmonds’ face silences the competition. (2018) — Scott Marks
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