Chaos Walking
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.png) This movie is nothing but Chaos and Walking.
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Chaos Walking is a 2021 American dystopian action film directed by Doug Liman and stars Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. It is based on the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness, specifically the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go.
Chaos Walking was originally going to be released on March 1, 2019, but the film was delayed to accommodate the film's reshoots and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Plot
In the not too distant future, Todd Hewitt discovers Viola, a mysterious girl who crash lands on his planet, where all the women have disappeared and the men are afflicted by “the Noise” – a force that puts all their thoughts on display. In this dangerous landscape, Viola’s life is threatened – and as Todd vows to protect her, he will have to discover his own inner power and unlock the planet’s dark secrets.
Bad Qualities
- The main problem with this film is that it suffered through executive meddling. As stated above, the movie was supposed to be released in 2019, but was delayed to January of 2021 due to poor test screenings. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened which caused the release date to March of 2021.
- Poor grasp of the source material: Many sequences in the novel were changed in order to give the movie a complete storyline. Such as...
- Todd and Viola are in their late teens unlike 13 in the books.
- Todd's dog, Manchee being changed from a male to a female.
- Aaron is a religious extremist rather than schizophrenic.
- Misogyny: Though not as bad as Duke Nukem Forever or Ride to Hell: Retribution, there were lots of insults about men being strong and women being weak, which is somewhat sexist. While it is excusable since it tries to be anti-leftist, it fails terribly.
- Much like the narrator in Peppa Pig, the characters have a tendency to state the obvious, sometimes more than once.
- Poor acting, aside from Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland.
- Weird story.
- The concept was extremely wasted. It's a fantastic concept of a women being on a planet of only men that could've been great, but instead, we got a generic "Get from Point A to Point B" storyline.
- Some scenes have a lot of corny and disturbing moments, especially the scene where Todd's buttocks when he jumps naked into a river to catch some dinner, and when he says "girl" too much.
- One example of these disturbing moments is when Aaron drowns Todd's dog, which is considered to be animal cruelty. In fact, in the original novel, Aaron snaps the dog's neck which is even more disturbing.
- Another moment is where a man is burned alive in one incident of a shooting.
- The ending was pointlessly changed, probably so that the movie can feel conclusive without a sequel bait.
- In the novel, Davy shoots Viola with Todd scaring him off. Todd then carries Viola to Haven only to find Mayor Prentiss has taken over. In the film, Todd is wounded by Prentiss in the climax only for Viola to save him by pushing Prentiss off a cliff. A colony ship then appears, causing Davy and the rest Prentisstown to flee. Todd is then fully healed by Viola and she takes him to meet the other colonists.
- One of the problems about this film is that it doesn't have enough in service building blocks of something far more complex and meaningful to make the film look like a dystopian action movie.
- While the effects are nicely made, the effect used for Todd looks eerily similar to the human version of Doug from Pixar's Up.
- The pacing is uneven. Sometimes, it feels too slow and other times it feels too fast.
- It just feels like a series of events with no real connection between Holland and Ridley.
- There isn't much character development. Todd just only goes with Viola to Haven because he has a crush on her, and that's it.
Good Qualities
- Good directing by Doug Liman.
- Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley give a phenomenal performances as expected. Daisy Ridley herself was a fan of the books as confirmed by writer Patrick Ness. Mads Mikkelsen and Nick Jonas aren't bad in their roles either.
- The visual effects are quite smooth for a science fiction film.
- The kissing scene, while odd to some people, is sorta cute.
- Some of the action scenes are great.
- The concept of a woman being in a world of only men is great, had this film been executed better.
- Even though it has a somewhat misogynistic tone, at least the film did its best to avoid left-wing propaganda (as stated above).
- Despite changing the source material, the ending isn't too bad.
- Great soundtrack.
- Some funny moments like Viola saying she likes Todd's dog.