Review: ‘Chaos Walking’
Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley shine in this highly engaging, surprisingly nuanced and incredibly timely dystopian sci-fi that is much better than its troubled roll-out would suggest.
It has been almost 10 years since a film adaptation of Chaos Walking was announced. Subjected to a countless number of delays throughout the past few years and a series of highly publicized reshoots, the film has largely been written off as a complete and total disaster well before any footage from it was even seen. Considering the way it has been treated by both its studio and its actors, who seem to have put it firmly behind them to focus on newer projects instead, you would be forgiven if you too also shared that same opinion. But in a surprising turn of events, Chaos Walking, which is scheduled to debut in theaters on March 5, is not at all a bad film. Far from it, actually.
Based on a series of YA novels from British-American author Patrick Ness, Chaos Walking is set in a dystopian world where all living creatures, excluding women who have all been killed off by an alien species referred to as the Spackle, can hear each other’s thoughts through a stream of images, words, and sounds they refer to as the Noise. The film follows Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland), the youngest living survivor of a small colony referred to as Prentisstown, who happens upon a mysterious young woman Viola (Daisy Ridley) who seems to have crash landed on his planet. Todd, with the help of his adoptive fathers Ben (Demian Bichir) and Cillian (Kurt Sutter), attempts to hide Viola before she falls into the grasps of David (Mads Mikkelsen), the cruel Mayor of Prentisstown who is hiding a deep, dark secret.
From its lush cinematography and its folk-tinged score, Chaos Walking seems to have been painstakingly designed to emulate the success and popularity of both The Hunger Games and Divergent, two dystopian science fiction films also based on YA novels that were both released by Lionsgate. While Chaos Walking doesn’t hold a candle to The Hunger Games, which remains to this day one of, if not the best adaptation of a YA novel, it is just as good, if not better than Divergent, thanks to a series of fantastic performances and a timely subject matter that will resonate more than ever in today’s current social and political climate. While the film does set up a sequel, it still also works as a standalone, with most plot points resolving themselves by the end of the film’s runtime.
While all the supporting players, particularly Demian Bichir and Mads Mikkelsen, who fully leans into his character’s manipulative, twisted nature, manage to leave an impact despite their lack of screentime, the film very much belongs to Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, who turn in wonderful performances that will resonate with viewers throughout the course of the film’s 109-minute runtime. While Todd may carry shades of Peter Parker with his self-effacing nature and incredibly earnest persona, Holland does a fantastic job at differentiating him from Spider-Man, establishing a jaded, more headstrong approach to the character as he grapples with the realization that everything he knows may have been based on a lie. With his good looks and natural on-screen presence, Holland is very much a movie star but he is also an incredible actor who can always be counted on to elevate any and all material he is given. While Ridley is given considerably less to work with due to the secretive nature of her character, she still manages to turn in a good performance as a “fish out of water” as she struggles to come to terms with the radically different nature of the strange world around her.
The film also brings to mind the dark reality and manipulative nature of cults and echo chambers as Todd struggles to break free from everything he has been taught by the people of Prentisstown. Mikkelsen’s initially fatherly presence slowly chips away into something far more sinister as the film progresses, bringing to mind the brainwashing techniques frequently employed by cult leaders and their followers. The film is at its best when it focuses on the incredibly interesting and highly complex nature of its characters’ conundrums; a specific scene in which Todd struggles to come to terms with the death of a loved one, with his feelings of grief battling the outdated concept of masculinity he has been taught by his elders, is one of the film’s best moments thanks to Holland’s layered, nuanced performance.
Chaos Walking is not by any means a perfect film; its third act is slightly rushed and not enough time is given to fully establish the strange world its characters inhabit, but it is not the total disaster its production process and marketing material would suggest. It is a competently directed, highly engaging and surprisingly nuanced movie that has a lot to offer its audience, particularly through its impressive performances and interesting insights that feel incredibly in tune with today’s society.
Rating: 3.5/5
Chaos Walking will be released in theaters on March 5, 2021.