Chaos Walking (2021)
Directed by Doug Liman
Two unlikely companions embark on a perilous adventure through the badlands of an unexplored planet as they try to escape a dangerous and disorienting reality, where all inner thoughts are seen and heard by everyone.
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10 films that influenced Chaos Walking
What critics say influenced Chaos Walking
The blend of Western costumes, laser-weapons, spacecraft, and bits of advanced tech is interesting (at its worst, reminiscent of “Timerider” or “Doomsday”), but the road-movie design, turbulent quest through an overgrown wilderness, and pursuit by grubby hunters quickly resemble “The Walking Dead” or “After Earth” or “Bird Box” or the many other postapocalyptic thrillers in which mankind is the ultimate enemy against the few stragglers who cling to moral decency amid the often vicious struggle simply to survive.
So Liman, who has proved he can make inspired sci-fi movies before with films like Edge of Tomorrow , attempts to elevate Chaos Walking from the rest of its YA compatriots by giving it an intensely dark and grim tone.
While Edge of Tomorrow instantly impressed for many reasons, using time-loop trickery in a smart action flick and never just feeling like a cheap Groundhog Day ripoff was chief among them.
Instead of channeling his Edge of Tomorrow self, the filmmaker opts for his also-for-YA Jumper one, using this haphazard, uncertain visual language to solve the mysteries—the nature of Noise, how does it play into our leads Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) and Viola Eade (Daisy Ridley)’s eventual discovery of a truth the adults would want to stay buried and how, from there, the mayor plus preacher of Todd’s settlement, Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen) and Aaron (David Oyelowo), will hunt them down—and build a universe designed for multiple visits.
Author Patrick Ness took the pearl-clutching idea of humanity overloaded with information, added a dash of gender politics, and crafted the Chaos Walking trilogy, which, after extensive delays and various creative dance partners, has finally been birthed by Ness (with co-writer Christopher Ford) and director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow).
The thing that becomes evident midway into “Chaos Walking,” which is directed by Doug Liman, who with “The Bourne Identity” (2002) and “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014) has proven his hand as an action filmmaker, is that the setup is all there is to this future show, and anything piquing interest gets immediately muzzled by the noise of frenetic plot movement.
However, instead of Liman overseeing these new sequences, they were helmed by “Don’t Breathe” director Fede Alvarez.
Instead of channeling his Edge of Tomorrow self, the filmmaker opts for his also-for-YA Jumper one, using this haphazard, uncertain visual language to solve the mysteries—the nature of Noise, how does it play into our leads Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) and Viola Eade (Daisy Ridley)’s eventual discovery of a truth the adults would want to stay buried and how, from there, the mayor plus preacher of Todd’s settlement, Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen) and Aaron (David Oyelowo), will hunt them down—and build a universe designed for multiple visits.
Doug Liman’s foray into science fiction has given us inexplicable lows like Jumper , and impressive heights such as Edge of Tomorrow .
Then, just in time to undermine his newfound box-office clout, he directed the hokey science fiction romance Jumper , with young Star Wars actor Hayden Christensen in the lead role.
However, I think at this point, and after the likes of Locked Down , Jumper and Mr. and Mrs. Smith , when given a subpar script he’s not the one who is going to elevate the finished film to a point anywhere beyond barely passible.
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Chaos Walking is by no means breaking the mold of the YA genre that saw its peak years ago with The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner.
The film’s origin is admittedly not as commercially misguided as its belated arrival suggests: the rights to Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy — this film roughly covers the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go — were acquired during the Twilight heyday, before The Hunger Games tetralogy had even kicked off, and at nearly the same time that deals were made for the likes of The Maze Runner and Divergent.
It may have slowed its roll in recent years, but because the publishing industry still relies heavily on young adult fiction (and let’s be frank, it’s where the bulk of genre creativity is being discovered right now), Hollywood hasn’t given up quite yet on finding the next Hunger Games or Harry Potter or, shoot, why not The Maze Runner ?
He has Swingers, Go, Mr and Mrs Smith and American Made to his name, but filmmaker Doug Liman is no stranger to helming movies that recall 90s greats.
Some of the action sequences are pacy and gripping, which you would expect from someone like Liman who directed the first Bourne movie as well as Go, The Edge of Tomorrow and American Made.
The core weakness is the adaptation by Christopher Ford ( Spider-Man: Homecoming ) and Ness, which lacks the subtler nuances and spiritual dimension the novelist brought to the screen retelling of his book A Monster Calls in 2017.
But say this for a movie that technically falls in the tradition of anonymous junk like I Am Number Four and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones : This orphaned YA-fantasy story still has moments that feel like a quintessential Liman project, and not especially because of any obvious thematic preoccupations, or even an inimitable style .
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But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from two decades of dystopian young-adult movies, it’s never to trust the foundational mythology laid out in the opening act, because it’ll almost certainly be overturned later on (à la “Oblivion,” which wanted us to believe that Tom Cruise was one of two remaining humans on the planet).
Try and conjure up a sliding scale, say “Hunger Games” to “The Giver” or “Ender’s Game” or “City of Ember” or the later “Divergents” or “Maze Runners” and on and on.