Chaos Walking movie review 2021

MOVIE TITLE: CHAOS WALKING

Available in theaters only for now. It’s slated to arrive on Video on Demand in about 3 months.

RATING: PG-13

LENGTH: 1 hour 49 minutes

IN A NUTSHELL:

A dystopian world where there are no women and all living creatures can hear each other’s thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called Noise. Sounds creative, right? The concept is intriguing, but sadly, the film is a bit of a mess.

This dystopian thriller directed by Doug Liman is based on Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy trilogy by Patrick Ness. The first book in the series actually won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize award. Tom Holland had an uncredited role in A Monster Calls, which was another book by Patrick Ness that was turned into a movie. After years of delays, rewrites, and reshoots, this movie is finally getting its day in the sun, but most of the viewers and critics say it just doesn’t shine.

THINGS I LIKED:

I adore Tom Holland. He’s believable as the boyish Spiderman, but he’s also been pumping out some impressive dramatic roles lately, such as CHERRY. He keeps showing us that he’s much more than our friendly, neighborhood superhero. To play this role, he was asked to grow as much facial hair as possible, but it didn’t amount to much. During the first week of filming, he broke his nose after getting punched in the face by a stuntman during a fight scene. On the last day of filming, he actually passed out on camera when he had to hold his breath underwater!
I hadn’t seen Daisy Ridley in anything since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. She wore a blonde wig in this film to change her look. She and Tom Holland have great physicality and chemistry in this movie.
I love the visual concept of showing thoughts. I loved hearing Tom Holland’s thoughts, especially when they weren’t congruent with the words coming out of his mouth. I laughed when he kept saying, “Be a man.”
It’s especially poignant that the men can’t read the girls’ thoughts. So true, eh?
The movie feels like a mixture of a western flick and a dystopian movie.
Lots of action.
Good for Nick Jonas. He has been showing up in more and more films lately.
Most of the filming took place in Montreal, Canada back in 2017 with reshoots done in Atlanta, Georgia. Both Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley were busy filming other movies, so they didn’t actually film those reshoots until 2 years later! Sadly, Tom Holland actually missed the premiere of the Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame because he was busy doing reshoots for this film!
I thought the story idea was intriguing. Visually, it created an entertaining viewing experience.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

The script is really messy, which is just unfortunate. The film looks more like a series of events, rather than a sequence that builds into the next scene.
What a shame to have a movie with the incredibly talented David Oyelowo and not give him much screen time.
I was also wondering when we were going to get to see Cynthia Erivo in another movie again. I thought she was great in Harriet in 2019. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get much screen time or a big role to sink her teeth into.
It takes a while to understand what the heck is going on. A lot of people will be confused.
The characters’ motivations are not explained very well so their actions make the characters appear to be paper-thin. That’s especially strange considering you’re able to hear people’s thoughts.
Characters come and go rather quickly, especially the aliens, which are never fully explained.
Not all of the humor lands.
The trailer actually gives away some plot points surprises.
The movie kind of ends abruptly without allowing us to sink into an emotional build-up.
The movie is supposed to lead into a franchise, but if it doesn’t do well, this one could be the end of the story.
Supposedly, the movie cost $100million. Parts of the movie look very cheap, so I guess the budget was spent on building a cool spaceship and adding visual effects “noise”.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Lots of profanity and F-bombs
Kids will mostly be bored
There’s a scary monster-looking creature
People and creatures die
There’s a homosexual couple but that part of the story didn’t go anywhere.

THEMES:

Thoughts
Privacy
Truth
Identity
Freedom

FUNNY LINES:

“Men and women don’t sleep in the same place because y’all make too much noise.” – Hildy (Cynthia Erivo)
I don’t need clean clothes.” – Todd (Tom Holland) “Yes, yes you do.” – Hildy

INTERESTING LINES:

“Why does anyone look for a new place to live? They think it will be a better place.” – Viola (Daisy Ridley)
“You hide your noise like a woman.” – Aaron (David Oyelowo) “I consider that a compliment” – Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen) “It’s not.” – Aaron (David Oyelowo)