How quickly can a gimmicky premise become almost insufferably annoying? This is the question that haunts screenwriters Patrick Ness and Christopher Ford in Chaos Walking, a sci-fi thriller-cum-unintentional comedy set against the backdrop of an off-world colony whose male citizenry have lost the ability to keep their thoughts to themselves. Meanwhile, a woman — the first among these men for almost a generation — crash-lands in their midst. This premise holds a certain amount of promise, none of which director Doug Liman is either able or willing to explore.
The film is an adaptation of the novel The Knife of Never Letting Go, written by Ness and featuring a title that is as much a collection of random words to form a phrase as the plot is a series of events that become less sensible as they unfold. One must begin, however, with the fact that the men cannot think to themselves anymore. This is meant literally, and Liman envisions those loud thoughts — known as a person’s “noise” — as an actual speech bubble enveloping the heads of the thinkers. One must begin with this, because one will not be able to move past this concept in any way that allows for an entry point into the story.
That story follows Todd (Tom Holland), a young field worker whose mother (like every other woman on this planet) was killed in an epic battle with the planet’s native inhabitants, and Viola (Daisy Ridley), the pilot who crash-lands on the planet. Todd’s impulse is to protect her, having never met a woman before, and Viola simply wants to make contact with her ship. Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen), the mayor of the town, and Aaron (David Oyelowo), a mysterious figure whose noise manifests in a different (and, because the digital effects turn orange-red instead of hazy-blue, theoretically menacing) way, want to protect the secrets of the village.
That is essentially the extent of the conflict in Ness and Ford’s screenplay, which is admirable, but Liman still turns to a series of tired action sequences whenever it seems the plot might stall and lose the minimal degree of altitude it has gained. Prentiss, who is inexplicably given a sidekick in the form of his son Davy (Nick Jonas) despite the boy serving no narrative purpose whatsoever, and especially Aaron, who is given no characteristics, motivation or compelling history, are dull villains, something of which Mikkelsen and Oyelowo seem to be painfully aware.
Neither of the protagonists, meanwhile, is a particularly active participant in the plot. Holland and Ridley are given plenty of physical feats of derring-do, but as actors, they aren’t exactly given the opportunity to stretch their abilities. The necessary parts of Todd’s dialogue are located within his thoughts, meaning that Holland need only deliver the spoken words with serviceable believability and look embarrassed by whatever his mind betrays of his thoughts. Ridley stands around looking aloof or bemused as Viola, who is given one thing to do in the movie and a lot of busywork on the journey to get to that point.
It all really comes down to the central gimmick. The “noise” is brought to life with digital effects that are convincing enough, but the entire concept is a lost cause from the moment they appear onscreen. Not only do they betray the entire point of following a character’s journey by telling us with unceasing constancy what it is also, at that very moment, showing us, but they also undermine Holland’s (as well as everyone else’s) potentially thoughtful choices as an actor. Chaos Walking is predicated upon a faulty premise and only builds a familiar adventure story upon that rickety foundation.
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