3ish Shortish Paragraphs: Chaos Walking

2021, Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) -- download

For some reason, just typing Doug Liman's name starts the Moby song Extreme Ways playing in my head.

I am hoping that Space Colonization is the replacement for the troublesome Earth-bound colonization & exploration genres. Chaos Walking, based on the young adult series by Patrick Ness, is one such story, set on a planet recently colonized by settlers, and expecting a new wave. But something happened during the establishment of a settlement, a conflict with the locals (the Spackle) killed off all the women of Prentisstown. When they arrived a new condition arose where all the thoughts & emotions were constantly portrayed to the world in a cacophonous colour spray of sound & image, called The Noise. Todd (Tom Holland, The Impossible) is the last youth of the town, a teenage boy coming into adulthood and at odds with the toxic masculinity that is his home. His Noise often betrays his feelings. And then a scout ship from the coming wave of settlers crashes, with only Viola (Daisy Ridley, Murder on the Orient Express) surviving. And she doesn't have The Noise.

Immediately upon Viola's arrival, Todd begins to feel something is off. Not only is she the first woman he has seen since he was a toddler, but the men of Prentisstown, including the always furious preacher Aaron (David Oyelowo, Selma) with scarlet tinted Noise, and the charismatic and intimidating Mayor Prentis (Mads Mikkelson, Rogue One) are angered by her arrival, and fear her. Something is not quite right. Todd is drawn to Viola, as all adolescent boys (note, I could not buy the buff Tom Holland as a teen boy) but realizes something about her presence is important. So he decides to secret her away, and is led by his father Ben (Demián Bichir, Kong vs Godzilla) to a neighbouring community, to find shelter and protection. But even there they cannot escape the Mayor and his fanatics, and again have to flee, which brings them to the remains of the first colony ship, in which Viola hopes to find the technology that can assist her.

There is an incredible world introduced here, unfortunately saddled with a pedestrian story, not really well told. So much of this movie just speaks to sloppiness in the production, the script and the story choices. And not surprising considering the dragged out production that dropped the original Charlie Kaufmann script in 2012, jumped around with a room of writers, considered Robert Zemeckis for director but went with Limon, did most of the shooting in 2017, and then dragged until 2019 to have Fede Álvarez (The Girls in the Spider's Web) to direct the reshoots. Its not surprising it shows.

Despite this, I still enjoyed watching the flick. Holland and Ridley are more than decent performers who I enjoy watching work. And of course Mikkelson is always riveting. But so many bits just irritated me, none more than the patchy depictions of The Noise, where some scenes they would have it dancing around in the background above every man's head, and then in other scenes, they just dropped it entirely, like the forgot to finish some post production world. Major Prentiss is supposed to represent a grand evil in men, but comes off as a bland B-western villain who never really seems something to be feared. And the toss away mention of the indigenous alien race, The Spackle is just ... confusing. And despite my desire to see the evils of colonization dispensed with, that is really what the movie's core ends up being about.