For fans of thunderous dystopias.
Direction: Doug Liman Cast: Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Demián Bichir, David Oyelowo, Cynthia Erivo Original title: Chaos Walking Country: United States Year: 2021 Release date: 04-30-2021 Genre: Science fiction Script: Charlie Kaufman, Gary Spinelli, Lindsey Beer, John Lee Hancock, Andrew Gottlieb, David Rosen Photography: Ben Seresin Synopsis: In the not too distant future, Todd Hewitt meets Viola, an enigmatic girl who has crashed on his planet, where all women have disappeared and men are affected by “the noise” – a force that exhibits all their thoughts. In such a dangerous environment, Viola’s life is threatened and by promising to protect her from her, she must discover her own inner strength and reveal the dark secrets of the planet.
The best: the charming aftertaste of guilty pleasure.
The worst: little joke with wasting Mads Mikkelsen.
The blockbuster craving of the current conjuncture has a curious collateral damage: the ‘pilot films’, attempts at sagas that remain at their starting point and are on the way to becoming an autonomous genre. Among others, The Golden Compass, The Fifth Wave, I’m Number Four, or my favorites, The Spiderwick Chronicles and City of Bones. It is more than likely, unless an immediate sequel is announced, that this adaptation of the first part of the Patrick Ness trilogy will end up swelling this mass grave of cinematic islands. And he deserves it: this walking chaos is rather a small thing, but its dystopian kitsch grace falls in love with the rhythm of facepalm.
If you enjoy old Brian Trenchard-Smith classics, or didn’t dislike Andrew Niccol’s best worst movies [The Host, In Time] you might find Chaos Walking a point. And if not, you can always entertain yourself with the impossible romance between two archetypes as current as the sensitive male and the empowered-because-yes-woman.
