‘Chaos Walking’: Tom Holland & Daisy Ridley Can’t Save Doug Liman’s Uninspired Dystopian Sci-Fi Thriller [Review]

For a sci-fi dystopian thriller about dark secrets and not being able to conceal your inner-most thoughts—and hide, you know, secrets— Lionsgate’s “Chaos Walking” is extremely uninspired and even unimaginative. Based on the first novel in the “Chaos Walking” series, “The Knife of Never Letting Go,” by Patrick Ness, the film’s setting is the future, and a planet that humans have colonized because Earth’s environment is no longer sustainable. Dubbed, “The New World,” this Earth-like planet has a curious byproduct side effect—humans can hear each other’s thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called the Noise (visualized as a purple cloud over everyone’s head that is constantly buzzing and chattering on about something).

The Noise is your inner monologue, your unedited stream of consciousness unfiltered for all to see. But given all the possibilities of that setup, “Chaos Walking” unexcitingly does very little with the phenomenon, other than for the practical purposes of betraying one’s feelings and thoughts for plot purposes. Aka, good luck ever hiding a secret. Well, sort of (and those contradictions will be addressed).

“Chaos Walking” has another unusual setting. There are no women in the settler village of Prentisstown, and someone like the adolescent man Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) is too young to remember the tragic legend wherein the planet’s indigenous species killed them all. There is mystery surrounding this myth, but also, aggression, imbued by the town’s militia, their rivalry with the unseen rival neighboring town, Farbranch, and a ranting and raving, fire and brimstone preacher Aaron (David Oyelowo), who seems to have lost his mind.

Todd’s two fathers and guardians are Ben (Demián Bichir) and Cillian (Kurt Sutter), who toil endlessly in their beets farm, outside of the testosterone hostility of Prentisstown, but its Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen), who Todd seems to admire most.

Unlike most of the men, he is calm and collected, and his Noise radiates at a bare minimum. Mayor Prentiss is the one man who seems to have his Noise and secrets under control.

The film’s world is upended when an escape pod crashes, and Todd comes face to face with something he has never seen: a woman, Viola (played by Daisy Ridley). Inquisitive, empathetic, and slightly enamored, Todd tries to help Viola. But when the aggro men of Prentisstown learn about her, “Chaos Walking” essentially turns into a search and destroy chase film: Todd trying to protect and safeguard Viola and Prentiss and his militia trying to hunt her down, the Mayor convincing everyone that her rescue ship will soon arrive and wipe them out if they don’t wipe her out first. It’s a manipulative kill or be killed survival of the fittest, and the film doesn’t get much more complex.

Which is the core problem of “Chaos Walking.” The film has a dark secret that isn’t too hard to figure out, given its central themes of fear of the unknown, misogyny, control, manipulation, and the fear of losing power. And it also has this plot conceit about never being able to hide your thoughts—meanwhile, unconvincingly and inconsistently, the movie seems to be able to hide its big secret from Todd and, therefore, us, as he is the audience cipher. There’s also this central theme of toxic masculinity and a world of men afraid of women that seems timely and evocative, but “Chaos Walking” never does anything with that other than the surface idea. It’s a film that reads, on its exterior, like a thoughtful sci-fi film with something to say in the vein of Nolan, Kubrick, Villeneuve, Rian Johnson, etc., but actually is fully bereft of any depth. There’s meant to be some degrees of grappling with guilt, too, the men bereaved by their own sins (that they’ve somehow kept secret even though no one can keep their secrets under wraps, huh?? ?), but none of it is remotely emotional or meaningful.

Worse, one’s Noise is supposed to be able to create images too. One supposes this could be a creative tool to use. For example, Holland creates a snake that attacks Nick Jonas, who plays Mikkelsen’s simp son, for pissing him off. It’s unclear if that’s all the film’s budget could afford, but no creative use of Noise images is ever employed again.

Directed by Doug Liman, delayed for years, and seemingly riddled with reshoots, “Chaos Walking” arrives at the screen sounding like something of a great chaotic mess—something Liman is legendary for, even though the end product of many of his notoriously anarchic productions (“The Bourne Identity, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “Edge Of Tomorrow”) are quite excellent. Ironically, “Chaos Walking,” isn’t a disarray of a film; it’s easy enough to follow. Instead, it’s just dull, deeply bland, and unsophisticated, with little to say about any of its themes of intolerance, fear, misogyny, and gaslighting, other than these feelings exist (as a side note, the script is credited to Patrick Ness and Christopher Ford, but Charlie Kaufman originated the original adaptation, and let’s just say anything resembling his imaginative takes are non-existent).

Never once does “Chaos Walking” surprise—even when the border town is revealed to feature dozens of women (led by Cynthia Erivo). Instead, Mikkelsen and his marauders chase, invade, and pillage, while Holland uses every delay tactic, he can find to hide and safeguard Ridley.

“Without a filter, a man is just… Chaos Walking,” the title card of the film spells out. And sure, Liman’s film does present a world of unhinged men, perhaps disturbed by the concept that they cannot keep their depraved transgressions to themselves and that there is nowhere to hide, but the consequence of that is just violence. And while that may feel like an all-too-real male response, it’s also just basic, like basic dudes being basic, in a pretty basic film. [D]