Title: CHAOS WALKING
Director: Doug Liman
Starring: Daisy Ridley, Tom Holland, Mads Mikkelsen, Demián Bichir, Cynthia Erivo, Nick Jonas, and David Oyelowo
Movie length: 1 hours 53 minutes
CHAOS WALKING is the newest addition to the young adult book-to-movie series and is based on the book The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. This movie was filmed in 2017 and then 2 years later they did some reshoots. Finally in 2021 it was released during the time when most movie theaters were closed. I eventually saw it on a drive-in-theater near me (after considering to drive to Arizona to see it since my theater wasn’t showing it originally.) The movie was amazing both picture and sound wise, now only if the actual movie was as good as the presentation.
This is by far the worst movie I have seen in the Covid era of big budget movies. It’s not just bad it’s annoyingly bad.
It’s almost like the people who wrote the screenplay and/or the director have have zero understanding of the human mind, how it works or what goes on in there. The way people think in this movie is not how normal people think in everyday life. While you are going to work you don’t think to yourself go go go go go stop light! Stop! Green light! Go go go go go! If you have a desk job you don’t sit at your desk and think all day, pencil paper pencil paper pencil paper! Keyboard! keyboard! Mouse! Mouse! Printer!
You probably think, what you are going to have for lunch today or maybe hum a song you heard on the radio. When you’re eating lunch you don’t sit there and think sandwich sandwich sandwich.
The plot of the movie is basically it’s the future and the majority of women have been killed off by men, and men have this uncontrollable thoughts that anybody can hear or see. Also different planets exist so you can go from one planet to another. Some planets are poor some are rich. So of course people from poor planets want to get off their planets and go to ones that are better, but the way they accomplish it is terrible. Our main focus is on Tom Hewitt played by Spider-Man Tom Holland. You can see the actors in this movie are really trying to make sense of the script and the direction they are given, but somehow it misfires.
Only the men in this movie have their thoughts and dreams visible to everybody. That could have been fun or funny like what if somebody had a song stuck in their head and that played throughout the whole movie when the character would show up that would be funny and a good use of that trope. But it’s almost like this movie had zero budget for music because there are absolutely no songs in this movie, which makes for a very dull and dry movie.
And speaking of dryness, there are sea creatures in this movie but they’re not utilized at all. There are times when you think now here are where the sea creatures are going to show up but nope they are so disappointing that it leaves you feeling well then why even have them in the movie then.
The most annoying thing about this movie is how Tom Holland’s character who just repeats his name over and over and over again throughout the whole movie. And Daisy Ridley plays her character as one who is confused and has her mouth open throughout the whole movie. Somehow she knows how everything works and knows how to fix everything. Even if she has never seen this item before she knows how it works and how to fix it. I like Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland but this script does them no favors. I have also seen some behind the scenes of how the movie was made, and the director would just yell out random lines that the characters would have to parrot. Maybe that also took a toll on the movie.
Mads Mikkelsen is also in this movie as well as Nick Jonas and even they can’t save this movie, they do a great job but you would think they wouldn’t be fooled by simple tricks that Tom Holland’s character does. If it’s established that you can hear everybody’s thoughts and you can see everybody’s dreams, why do people still get tricked?
Photo Credit: Murray Close 
Photo Credit: Murray Close
The basic premise is Daisy Ridley is trying to get off this planet and go back to her own planet but that isn’t as easy as it seems with lots of challenges along the way.
I give this movie an A for Aliens, just kidding, it gets a D for don’t see it.
CHAOS WALKING is now available on various VOD services as well as on 4k Ultra HD, Blu-ray, & DVD.
Do you plan to see the movie? Have you already? Let me know in the comments!
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