Chaos Walking

Adapted from the first book of a sci-fi trilogy, Chaos Walking offers a dystopian future on an alien world where human settlers deal with an oddity of the planet as men's thoughts are broadcast allowing others to hear, and even at time see, them. Our two main characters are the local screw-up Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) and newly-arrived colonist from space Viola (Daisy Ridley) who is notably taken aback by the unexpected phenomena and whose appearance throws the town into chaos and forces hidden truths about both the town and world Todd has grown up on to be explored.

Mads Mikkelsen as the town's dictator is our villain who will go to great lengths to keep control of the small portion of the world he's carved out for himself and doesn't have any interst in a single new settler setting foot on the planet. Like him, his minions are mostly one-note such as a crazed preacher (David Oyelowo) and his idiot of a son (Nick Jonas) who allows Viola's escape.

Dystopian sci-fi flicks are a favorite of studios and filmmakers because although you need to add sci-fi trappings here and there, the setting can be incredibly low-budget using rural, natural, or rundown urban areas. Almost all the special effect budget of Chaos Walking goes to the "Noise" of the men which manifests in CGI colored clouds which sometimes become full images playing out to anyone around revealing hidden thoughts and desires along with memories from the past.

Delayed two years due to reshoots and the the pandemic, you get a feeling the film was snakebit from the start. I think the concept of the Chaos Walking, which likely works better on paper, is better than the execution. We get Holland and Ridley together walking through the book's plot as a platonic and distrustful duo facing various obstacles to get to the end, but that's basically it as there are few moments of interest or surprises (and the ones we do get are only surprising to Todd).

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• Title: Chaos Walking
• IMDb: link