Chaos Walking is a sci-fi film directed by Doug Liman who previously worked on unique sci-fi films, such as Jumper and Edge of Tomorrow. This film was adapted from the sci-fi novel trilogy of the same name. This USD 100 million budget film stars top stars, Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Mads Mikkelsen, Nick Jonas, and David Oyelowo. With the talent of the director, first-class casting, to its big budget, we have high expectations for the film.
Thousands of years into the future, mankind has been looking for new habitats to replace the earth. The planet which is called New World has been inhabited by mankind since the first wave several decades ago. This planet seems to have an effect on humans, especially men, where their minds will be able to be read by others, which is termed “noise”. Todd (Holland) is the youngest inhabitant of the colony with not a single woman left. The head of the colony, Prentiss (Mikkelsen) has the ability to control the minds of almost all members of his colony. Later, a mother space ship came from earth to send a small team to find out where humans were on this planet. Unfortunately, due to an accident, this team only left Viola (Ridley), who was hunted by the Prentiss colony because they were considered to be a threat to their existence.
From the plot summary, the story is somewhat confusing. One thing that is difficult to understand is the motive of the story. There is one story setting that is not explained much here, namely the setting character for Prentis, who is the main key to the story. Why did he have to do it all in the first place? This is not clear at all. Is it because it threatens male superiority? Uh, this sure is bullshit and a ridiculous excuse. The lack of exposition makes throughout the plot weak and unable to have many ties to all the characters. If this was meant to be a trilogy, I think this is a very bad start.
Not only is the premise weak, the aesthetic approach which is intended to be the strength of the story is precisely the biggest weakness point of the film. The sound effect “the noise” actually disturbs and doesn’t make watching at all comfortable. This effect makes you tired to follow the story because it is often only repeated and the moment is the same. This is different from the technique similar to the “interior monologue” which was so intensively used in Dune (1984) which was intended for the audience. As a result of all this, none of the first class players were able to deliver a memorable performance.
Through a ridiculous premise and story, Chaos Walking is exacerbated by the use of an uncomfortable aesthetic approach rather than to serve the plot. This film also dumps the talents of the big casters and of course the budget. Chaos Walking could be one of the failed films, both commercially and critically during the pandemic era. For the filmmaker, Chaos Walking is his worst work so far.
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