Chaos Walking has had a remarkably rocky road to the big screen. Shot back in 2017, the first cut of the film was branded unreleasable. This led to reshoots that, due to stars Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland's commitments to other projects, didn't start until 2019. Now, it is quietly being released in theaters at a time when many movie houses in America are still closed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This may ultimately be for the best, as despite the years of work that have gone into improving the film, the final product is a mess of plot holes, one-dimensional characters and mystifying revelations.

The movie's most interesting idea is also the most difficult to pull off. In the distant future, humans settle a new Earth-like planet only to discover that the planet causes men to project "the noise," their unfiltered thoughts, for all the world to hear and see. The movie visualizes this as a colorful, gaseous cloud above the characters' heads that occasionally shows images of whatever they're thinking about with various degrees of solidity. Meanwhile, the images are accompanied by the man's voice, which is more or less constantly expressing a stream of consciousness monologue. Although this is the reality of all the men on the planet, the women's thoughts remain hidden.

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Of course, that doesn't much matter to Holland's Todd Hewitt as he lives in a town whose residents are only men. The women were slaughtered in a war with the planet's native inhabitants right after Todd was born, so when Todd comes across a girl for the first time, he's fascinated. This girl, Viola (Ridley), crash-landed on the planet near Todd's family's farm, the only survivor of a small scouting party. Yet, because she is the precursor to a second wave of settlers, the town's mayor (Mads Mikkelsen), Prentiss, wants to capture her and learn more. Realizing that Prentiss is up to no good, Todd decides to help Viola. They take off for a place where they may be able to signal her people, while staying only steps ahead of Prentiss and his posse.

It's clear viewers are in trouble from the movie's opening seconds where a hokey quote attributed to one of the settlers of the new planet explains noise and the meaning behind the film's title -- "without a filter a man is just chaos walking." Things only devolve from there. From the start, the movie's story raises more questions than it answers, not because those questions are compelling but because each answer points to more holes in the story. Todd hides the thoughts his noise could betray by repeatedly thinking, "I am Todd Hewitt," ad infinitum. Not only is this incredibly annoying, it also makes you wonder why Todd is so much worse at controlling his noise than many of the other town residents even though he's the only one who actually grew up with it.

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Plus, despite Holland's charmingly youthful screen presence as the MCU's Spider-Man and his charismatic turn in Cherry, in Chaos Walking, he comes across as an irritating child whose fascination with Viola seems to start and end with the fact that she's a girl. Star Wars' Ridley doesn't fare much better. While her character is far more capable and mature than Holland's, the only reason she's given slightly more nuance is because her thoughts aren't constantly being piped in via voice over. In fact, as a whole, the impressive cast, which also includes David Oyelowo, Demián Bichir, Cynthia Erivo and Nick Jonas, is given so little to work with, they mostly turn in perfunctory performances that show off very little of what they're each capable of.

Meanwhile, the mythology-heavy plot builds in revelation after revelation, that nonetheless never provide satisfying answers. While giving examples would lead to multiple spoilers, suffice it to say, very little about the plot holds together. As a result, the film's numerous big reveals feel more like headscratchers than eye-opening surprises.

The befuddlement evoked by the film's story extends to its sets and costume design. The movie is clearly going for a Western aesthetic but it seems odd that the settlers lack even the most basic technology given they arrived on the planet in an advanced spaceship. This is never explained, nor is why they've resorted to building the most basic wooden structures and wearing the most rudimentary wardrobe staples, from ponchos to cowboy hats. Meanwhile Ridley's character is saddled with an unflattering blond wig and a ridiculous orange jump suit, both of which ensure she sticks out like a sore thumb. Moreover, even though it takes place on another planet, outside of the noise, the differences between Earth and the new planet are barely brought up, with one brief encounter with a single native inhabitant serving as the most noteworthy reminder of the film's non-Earth location.

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The script for Chaos Walking is credited to Patrick Ness and Christopher Ford, and is based on Ness' novel The Knife of Never Letting Go, but there were a slew of other writers before Ness and Ford received final credit, including Charlie Kaufman, Lindsey Beer and John Lee Hancock. Clearly none of them figured out how to successfully translate the book's story to the screen. The script's problems are so fundamental, it's a wonder the film was ever made at all.

Director Doug Liman is an accomplished filmmaker with titles like The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow to his name. However, the most positive thing I can say about Chaos Walking is Liman manages to stage some impressive action sequences. Outside of that though, the film is a perplexing misfire for everyone involved.

Directed by Doug Liman, Chaos Walking stars Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Mads Mikkelsen, Demián Bichir, Cynthia Erivo, Nick Jonas, Kurt Sutter and David Oyelowo. The film is scheduled to premiere in select theaters on Friday, March 5.

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