Okay, so here’s the deal: Samira loves writing poetry and she’s dealing with cancer while staying at a clinic away from home. One day, her nurse decides it’s time for a little adventure, so she plans a trip for Samira, her cat Frodo, and some other patients. They’re all set to hit New York City and check out this puppet show. But to be honest, Samira seems more excited about grabbing some good pizza.

Then boom! Suddenly aliens decide it’s the perfect time to invade the city! Chaos everywhere. With everything going haywire, Samira manages to stay hidden with a group of people during the alien attack. Turns out these aliens really can’t stand loud noises, so everyone has to keep quiet if they want to make it through.

In this whole mess of madness and destruction right out of an apocalyptic movie, Samira bumps into Eric. He’s a British guy studying law in the city. The two join forces—and yes, Frodo tags along too—as they try to survive in this now-alien-filled New York.

This flick is all about what led up to everything we’ve seen in the earlier movies in this series. So basically, it’s kind of like going back before all that stuff happened later on but giving us new faces and brand-new stories. It doesn’t kick off exactly like how John Krasinski did his thing with the original movies but brings its own fresh excitement under Michael Sarnoski’s direction. It’s thrilling from start to finish but maybe misses a bit of that initial emotional punch everyone loved before.

The first movie totally nailed it with all the tension, right? They really got into the characters and how they connected with one another. That’s what made it so emotionally intense and gripping.