I’m not completely sure about the hate this movie was getting, to be honest. I mean, it was a few steps too far from being great, but was a far cry from being horrible. I was looking forward to a tremendous fight, but ended up getting something neat and tidy. It should have been chaotic, but it missed that mark. I know I’ve said ‘but’ a lot, however (ah ha!) this wasn’t too bad.

Chaos Walking was one of the few movies that scraped through the pandemic. I read that it had to be re-shot in 2019 due to the lack of positive responses from audiences in 2017. Finally rejigging a few main scenes, the movie was released early in 2021.

Based on books, and set on a new planet boringly called New World, in the year twenty-five, fifty-something, it follows a town of men whose thoughts are literally exerted out of their bodies for everyone to see, like smoke waving upward from a fire. Some control their ‘noise’ better than others, managing to manifest full forms of other people or objects. Todd (Tom Holland) however, is pretty shocking at controlling his, focusing on repeatedly saying his name to train himself to grab a hold of them. We are told that the native aliens of the planet are the ones that have killed off all the women. The town Todd comes from, named Prentisstown, clearly named after our villain, David Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen), is the crash landing point of Viola’s (Daisy Ridley) faulty shuttle that kills everyone else on it. She has never lived on a planet, and was born on a ship that is on the ‘journey’ to another planet. This ships journey has started from Earth. New World takes sixty-something years to get to, so life goes on as normal on this giant ship until it makes its way to the planet itself. Mayor Prentiss wants to capture this girl that is now being protected by Todd, seemingly to use her to get onto the ship and take control. I should also mention that women’s thoughts, do not project out like men’s do.

People had issues with the constant thoughts. But if they weren’t there as often, that wouldn’t be authentic. I think, anyway. Irrespectively of gender, we think often. So the frequency of thoughts resonating off Todd, was precise.

There were also mentions that most of this movie was just Todd and Viola walking through the forest, but that wasn’t the case at all. They were definitely on a journey from point A to point B, but they got there in a decent time frame with enough interesting interruptions to that journey.

My main issues with the film, are some of the points other reviews have made. Spoilers ahead…

Viola’s violent interaction with the preacher, Aaron (David Oyelowo) was plain, dumb. She lit him up in flames, but where the heck did that guy go? He backed away completely lit up whilst still rehearsing holy lines. I’m so confused by that. His character was also, pointless. They were leading up to something together with Mayor Prentiss, like a conflict between the two was rising, but it never happened.

Mayor Prentiss’ death was also a bit anticlimactic, together with the entire ending, actually. It was all a tad rushed. And, it was also there, in the time of need that Todd finally learnt how to control his noise. It was all a bit cringe.
Nick Jonas’ character as David Jr was unnecessary, with no character development at all from him. I think if he were to find out what his dad actually did to all the women, after believing his whole life that the natives did it, and then turned against his dad, that may have worked.

The more I pick at it here, it was kind of crappy after all, wasn’t it? Hmm.

Look I didn’t hate Chaos Walking, but I definitely wouldn’t rush to watch it again. It was okay. You decide and let me know.

Rating: 3/5