Samira’s this young poet who’s battling cancer, so she’s staying in a clinic on the outskirts of town. One day, an amazingly thoughtful nurse decides to take Samira (and her cat, Frodo!) along with other patients on a bus trip to New York City. They’re supposed to watch a puppet show, but Samira’s really excited about getting some good pizza more than anything else.

Her pizza dream turns into a nightmare when aliens suddenly invade, turning everything upside down! Chaos hits and Samira manages to survive somehow. She finds herself hiding with other people, figuring out that these aliens are freakily sensitive to noise—so whoever wants to make it out alive better stay really quiet.

Amidst all the alien madness and unexpected encounters, Samira pairs up with Eric, a British law student studying in NYC. With Frodo tagging along (of course!), they just try their best to stay alive in a city now overrun by chaos.

So this movie’s the third one in its series, trying something different by going back to tell us how everything started! It’s more like a prequel showing new folks facing off against incredible odds similar to what we’ve seen before.

John Krasinski—I mean he directed and starred in the first two flicks—had already given us flashes of what happened earlier…
In this movie, they use flashbacks to dive into the first invasion. Michael Sarnoski takes over as director and really focuses on showing the invasion and its immediate aftermath. This makes the action way more intense and thrilling! But, it does cut down on some of the emotional tension that was quite strong in the first film, largely because that one was so good at zooming in on the characters and their relationships.