Movie review: Chaos Walking
On paper, this dystopian sci-fi actioner appears to have all the right ingredients for a hit.
The leads are no less than Tom "Spider-Man" Holland and Daisy "Rey Skywalker" Ridley, attractive and charismatic young stars as well as fine actors who have proven they are more than capable of shouldering their own franchise.
Chaos Walking is based on the critically acclaimed, award-winning and best-selling young adult sci-fi trilogy of the same name by Patrick Ness, and its director is Doug Liman, whose last sci-fi offering was the sensational Edge Of Tomorrow (2014).
Yet, despite all the potential, talent and rich source material, the end result is a forgettable and an underwhelming viewing experience, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.
It was apparently chaotic behind the scenes too, with the film undergoing several reshoots and rewrites from a gamut of names, and Ness and his co-writer Christopher Ford revising the screenplay further.
The central conceit - where men can hear each other's thoughts in an unfiltered stream of images, words and sounds known as the Noise - is distracting and at times irksome when translated onto the big screen.
It is depicted via incessant voice-overs and a visual flurry of misty holograms that swirl around each character's head.
So just imagine Peter Parker talking non-stop, as he struggles to "control" his Noise.
After 30 minutes of this contrivance, it gets so clamorous and tedious, you just wish thought balloons would pop up instead.
Coming together with Ridley (channelling Rey in a bad wig) should have produced some on-screen magic, but their chemistry is just not powerful enough to break through.
Meanwhile, Mads Mikkelsen phones it in as the resident bad guy while David Oyelowo goes bafflingly over the top as a fire and brimstone preacher.
Chaos Walking ends on a rather anti-climactic note, as if it is holding out for a sequel.
But with a paltry US$6 million (S$8 million) box office gross against a US$100 million budget, it looks like I am not the only one who prefers it to be silenced for good.
Score: 2.5/5
FILM: Chaos Walking
STARRING: Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Mads Mikkelsen, David Oyelowo
DIRECTOR: Doug Liman
THE SKINNY: In a dystopian world where all the females have disappeared and all the men are afflicted by a force that puts their thoughts on display, Todd Hewitt (Holland) discovers a mysterious woman (Ridley) who crash-lands on his planet and whose life is threatened by the town’s nefarious mayor (Mikkelsen).
RATING: PG13
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