Chaos Walking (2021) Review

 "It's loud."

-Viola Eade

Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) lives in a village with no women, since they have all been killed off by aliens.  All of the men can also hear each other's thoughts, so it's hard to keep secrets.  This makes it difficult for Todd when he discovers a girl, Viola (Daisy Ridley), has crashed her spaceship nearby and while she can hear his thoughts, Todd can't hear hers.

What Works:

I was intrigued by the premise of this story.  Having all of your thoughts out in the open is very interesting and creates some unique conflict.  For most of the movie, the premise falls flat, but there are moments where it works well.  It's usually in the smaller, character driven scenes between Todd and Viola where it works best.

Both Holland and Ridley do their best with what they are given.  Their characters aren't well developed, so they do their best to carry the film on their charisma and chemistry alone.  Does it work?  No.  But it's an admirable effort and their scenes together are the best parts of the film.

Finally, there are some genuinely funny moments with Viola hearing Todd's thoughts at inopportune times.  The best one is not long after they have met, Todd thinks about kissing Viola, which he can't hide from her.  It caught me off guard and made me genuinely crack up.  Maybe if this movie had focused more on comedy, it would have worked better.

What Sucks:

When you make a dystopian world like this, a big focus needs to be on world building.  You have to set up the society and what a normal day is like so we can understand where the characters are coming from.  We get hardly any of that here, which makes it hard to relate to the characters and tough to care about them.  We need to know what's wrong with their world, why they are looking for a change, and what their relationships are like with other characters.  We get a little in this movie, but it isn't enough.

The noise in this movie is overwhelming at points.  Sometimes the thoughts of the characters are hard to hear, especially when there are multiple male characters in a scene.  They blend together and are too quiet.  Sometimes it's fine, like when the whole village is gathered in an uproar, but in scenes where we are supposed to hear the thoughts of the characters, they needed to be clearer.

One aspect of the film that I thought was really cool is that some of the men could channel their thoughts into images and actually create illusions with their mind.  It's a need idea, but it doesn't get used nearly enough.

Speaking of being underused, most of the characters are totally undercooked.  David Oyelowo had a lot of potential as the village's radical preacher.  We knew he was unhinged, but they didn't do enough with him.  Nick Jonas has barely anything to do and even Mads Mikkelsen feels wasted in the role.

Finally, the 3rd act is a bit of a snooze-fest.  They could have gotten really creative with the whole projecting images with your mind aspect and they do it a little, but they could have gone much farther.  They also could have had a badass fight sequence.  Nope.  We just get a lackluster one.  It's a underwhelming ending to an already underwhelming film.

Verdict:

Chaos Walking had a lot of potential thanks to an interesting premise and solid performances from Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, but they didn't do enough with said premise, the sound mixing needs work, the characters are underdeveloped, and the 3rd act falls completely flat.  Read my thoughts: this movie sucks.

 3/10: Really Bad