Chaos Walking (2021)

Chaos Walking (2021)

5/10

Starring

Daisy Ridley

Tom Holland

Mads Mikkelsen

Demián Bichir

 

Directed by Doug Liman

 

The movie for me is ok, but blew the potential of being an excellent film. Bad pacing, weak character development, a lot questions left unanswered and an adventure that starts out good, but becomes tiresome as it wore on.

I finished the movie wondering why the whole “Noise” thing was not fully developed and given more explanation. As it seems some people are better than using it than others. How come that is, I guess it is how come some people can draw and others can’t. Then we are made to believe that the planet is inhabited by alien species, that string is left standing.

I have not read the book the movie is based on, but I want to believe the writer did a better job putting things together than this movie.

The movie had a knack of boasting on confrontations, but when it came to actually delivering on it, it just ducks from it. Performance wise, Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland did very well.

The movie plot starts in the far future of 2257. Earth is not as it should be and humans have left the planet seeking refuge elsewhere. The planet we are in introduces us to Todd (Tom Holland) we see that he has the ability to read the thoughts of his dog and we can see his thoughts too. Soon we see that the other men in the town he lives are able to read each other thoughts, but Todd seems to be learning hard how to cage his.

We meet the mayor of the colony who seems to have mastered how to keep his thoughts caged and some how we see he has also learned how to control people. The whole men being able to read and see each other’s thought is called Noise, something they found happened to them when they got to this planet.

Through Todd we learn that the colony has no women, all the women have been killed by the alien species who were native to that planet. We also discover that other than men and the animals, you could not read the thoughts of women.

Todd is made to believe that his colony of just men is the only one that there is (which is not true) and humans (male or female) do not exist elsewhere. Things changed when we see a space ship land on the planet – the crash was catastrophic and only a woman survived named Viola (Daisy Ridley). Todd was the first person to discover her and he told the Mayor. He caught her and questioned her to know if another ship is coming. He seems to have other plans for the coming ship and we soon discover that he has being lying to the young ones about what really happened on the planet that they are in.

Todd soon gets the urge that Viola was in trouble and he immediately wanted to help her escape, soon (with the help of his adopted parents) they were both on the run from the men of their colony.

The movie is not recommended, it is ok and nothing more.

It is based on The Knife of Never Letting Go from the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness.