Based on the YA series by Patrick Ness,
Chaos Walking has an intriguing premise: on a faraway planet that is populated only by men, every man’s every thought is broadcast as ‘Noise’; an ethereal cloud, visible and audible to everyone, that when unkept can even take physical form and be weaponised (think of a snake and one shall appear for instance).
Hinting at lofty themes of privacy and toxic masculinity, it seems fertile ground for an intelligent and complex sci-fi drama. But having bagged two franchise favourites,
Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley and Marvel’s Tom Holland as the leads and directed by
Chaos Walking is a weird as hell movie. Having sat on a shelf for literally years, even before the pandemic stated, and getting a quick theatrical release in the States, it finally hit VOD in Canada via eOne Films. Surprisingly, its not an unwatchable mess as some of the pre-release buzz stated. It is definitely strange and has a central stylistic hook that can be annoying but oddly compelling. Sometimes it sort of works, and sometimes it really doesn’t. Chaos is a bit of a mess but an interestingly oddball misfire, attempting to do something distinct. It doesn’t exactly succeed but it is unique.
April 15, 2021 In Chaos Walking, Todd Hewitt is learning to be a man – and in Prentisstown, ostensibly the only settlement to survive humanity’s arrival on the planet New World, this means keeping your thoughts to yourself.
Something about the planet makes men’s consciousness audible and visible to others. As such, they must constantly hide their thoughts by focusing on something else, rehearsing daily chores or even just reciting their own names again and again. Women were unaffected, apparently, but rarely glimpsed aliens called the Spackle killed them all years ago, condemning the settlement to eventual extinction.
If this account of things seems a little off, imagine it delivered by an especially troubled-looking Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Prentisstown’s mysterious mayor. Watching his settlement’s secrets come to light, one by one, is one of this film’s chief pleasures.
Murray Close/Lionsgate
In
Chaos Walking, Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) is learning to be a man – and in Prentisstown, ostensibly the only settlement to survive humanity’s arrival on the planet New World, this means keeping your thoughts to yourself.
Something about the planet makes men’s consciousness audible and visible to others. As such, they must constantly hide their thoughts by focusing on something else, rehearsing daily chores or even just reciting their own names again and again. Women were unaffected, apparently, but rarely glimpsed aliens called the Spackle killed them all years ago, condemning the settlement to eventual extinction.
Star Wars and
Daisy Ridley and
Tom Holland, respectively, but rewrites, poor test screenings, and other various behind-the-scenes problems would shelve the movie until it became a strange relic of another time. And that’s what
Chaos Walking is: a relic, but an odd one at that, one that bears all the hallmarks of a standard YA dystopian movie, but with a shockingly grim and dark tone that appears to be part of an ill-conceived attempt to set it apart from the pack.
Based on the first book of
Patrick Ness‘
, The Knife of Never Letting Go,
Chaos Walking is set in a distant future, on a distant planet colonized by humans. But on this planet, no women remain while the men are all afflicted by “the Noise,” a force that puts all their thoughts on display. Holland stars as Todd Hewitt, a boy living in the settlement of Prentisstown who has particular trouble controlling his “Noise,” his thoughts spilling out in a barrage of images and whispered half-thoughts, which t