Chaos Walking: Movie Review
The new sci-fi adventure Chaos Walking from director Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, Jumper) has had a long journey to the screen since filming initially wrapped in 2017. Bad test screening reactions resulted in delayed reshoots which caused the film’s budget to rise quite a bit. Reshoots are commonplace in moviemaking but apparently a lot of work was needed to make Chaos Walking even remotely watchable. This was even more critical since the film is supposed to kick-off a franchise. After all, only the first book in a trilogy was adapted into a film. Will we get the rest of the books adapted? Well, if audiences respond to Chaos Walking the way I did, I find it highly unlikely.
Set sometime in the future on a distant planet, Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) discovers a crashed spaceship behind his family farm. The craft brought down a single survivor named Viola (Daisy Ridley). Todd is initially stunned. Not only because of the ship, but also because he has never seen a girl before. You see, all the humans living in his settlement are men. He was led to believe by Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen) that all the women were killed off by the planet’s native creatures.
The world Todd and everyone else reside on has a unique ability to make every living male’s thoughts visible through a series of colorful chaotic images that surround their heads. However, with Viola not being a male, her thoughts are kept inside her mind. Prentiss wants Viola captured, but Todd wants to protect her, so he takes Viola where his family tells him she will be safe.
Chaos Walking has an interesting premise and the first twenty minutes or so are even mildly interesting. I liked the scenes in which Todd tries to hide his thoughts but fails miserably most of the time. One of the problems here is that much like Liman’s Jumper, he relies to heavily on a one-trick special effect that becomes less interesting the more you see it. Both Holland and Ridley are likable here and it is thanks mostly to them that Chaos Walking isn’t insufferable.
Mikkelsen is completely wasted here as the main villain and David Oyelowo is given very little to do other than deliver rage-filled religious quotes while his mind shoots out images that look like flames. It’s a shame and just one of many elements that don’t work. Nick Jonas reminded me way too much of Giovanni Ribisi’s character in The Postman and the gifted Cynthia Erivo at least makes her presence known and does the best she can with the material she has to work with.
Even as a fan of sci-fi and the cast, there isn’t anything in Chaos Walking that I can recommend. There are too many loose threads and it never feels well organized or executed. On the other hand, the title has rarely felt more appropriate.
By: Marc Ferman