Chaos Walking - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Chaos Walking



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I’ve almost been on pins and needles for Chaos Walking to hit home video simply due to the scuttlebutt that has been bandied about for years. The film has basically been in development hell for 4 years, with the original film getting cut to pieces by Lionsgate due to how bad and unreleasable it supposedly was, and them spending multiple hundred million and an extra years time to release just to salvage it into a semi decent film. The commentary alone on the disc is worth its weight in gold as you get to listen to the people behind the scenes desperately try and sell you on how good the movie was, even though it was a known fact from several years back that this was an epic train wreck.

Patrick Ness is a great author, and his Chaos Walking trilogy is some pretty good reading, but I was totally expecting an abortion of cinematic proportions due to the development issues. Luckily what we get (thanks to Lionsgate spending hundreds of millions on reshoots) is at least a reasonably constructed film, even if it’s nothing but a paper shell of anything resembling a GOOD movie. It’s not bad, it just falls into the worst category of all. Neither bad, nor good, just simply “a movie”.

The story is actually about as paper thing as you can get. Todd Hewitt (Spiderman….errrrr. Tom Holland) is a young man living on an alien planet that has one special quirk about it (well two really). All the men have the ability to project their thoughts visually and verbally as a telepathic “shockwave” so to speak. Meaning every single thought, every single idea, every single embarrassing feeling is projected for the whole world to see. Women aren’t around in his settlement due to the fact that they were killed off by the indigenous species of the planet, and the town of Prentisstown is run by the overbearing hand of the one man who can actually control his thoughts (called the noise). Otherwise known as the town’s namesake and hero, David Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen).

Todd’s world gets turned upside down when a space craft lands in the edge of his farm, leaving only once survivor. A young lady named Viola (Daisy Ridley) who has the most subversive secret of all. They aren’t alone out there. Earth has been looking for it’s lost colonies, and they’re up in space. Todd is excited about meeting people of the mythical world of Earth, but David Prentiss has other plans. He wants to lure her ship down to the planet for a rescue, then steal said ship and take over the rest of the planet. Todd’s father Ben sees the upcoming power struggle and sends Todd and Viola off into the wilds to see help at another village in hopes that they can foil the power made mayor.

The movie itself is a jumble of ideas that just never really pans out. You get glimpses of plot points and stories that should be fleshed out, but are barely touched upon in a mad rush to get to the end of the hour and 48 minute mark. We see bits of the indigenous species, and then they vanish. We see background hints of a giant conspiracy, then that conspiracy is stomped out as we rush towards the inevitable rescue. No one is ever really sympathetic or well rounded, with Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley muttering their way through the script. The book was tense and harsh, but Director Doug Liman instead uses Tom Holland’s incessant verbal diarrhea to try and make tension. Instead it comes off as grating and annoying. Hey, even Mads Mikkelsen, the king of fantastic villains, is simply bored with his role. A feat witch actually took me by surprise, as he’s like Ben Mendolsen, unable to turn in a bad performance. And while his performance may not be BAAAD, it’s certainly not much more than him begging for the director to yell cut so that he can hit his trailer and forget about ever making the film.

I knew from the get go that Chaos Walking was going to be a hard novel to film presentation simply due to the fact that the telepathic “noise” was going to be hard to visually represent. What I was expecting was a film that paints a few numbers, hints at something more, and then ends as quickly as it started as if the entire production breathed a sigh of relief and said “thank goodness that’s over”. Even the media backing for it was a bit too desperate, as Lionsgate send over a box of swag “goodies” which amounted to a water bottle, a box of doggy doo doo bags, and silicone water bowl (I guess because there was a dog in the film?).




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for violence and language




Video:

Chaos Walking is listed as having Arri Alexa 65 digital cameras as the source material and finished at 4K for the master, so I was a bit sad that Lionsgate decided not to send out the 4K UHD disc to reviewers this last week, as it sounds like it was made for the format. Full of bright and deeply saturated forest greens and neon hues to simulate the constant “noise”, the film just pops at every turn. Deep shades of shadows and murky woods allow for some great black level representation, and details are stunning. There’s some mild softness that comes from the halo of “noise” that surrounds the heads of every male, and the CGI of the ship and aliens is just “ok”, but overall this is a great looking disc that really thrives off of the unique style of the telepathic noise being represented visually.







Audio:

The Dolby Atmos track (found on the 4K UHD disc for those who opt to go that way) is also just as stunning as the video. Rich and powerful, it hums with low end energy that permeates every section of the movie. The tense score ripples with power and authority, and there are some amazing moments near the end in the derelict ship that really rips the walls down. The atmos overheads get a great workout as birds flutter overhead, ships scream from above, and the forest sounds just hit you from all directions. Even the “noise” from various characters can float up above and create a sense of claustrophobia. Vocals are always crisp and clean, and surrounds are light and airy (a nice effect that seems to be prevalent in Atmos tracks).









Extras:

• Audio Commentary with Director Doug Liman, Producer Alison Winter and Editor Doc Crotzer
• "A Director's Noise" Featurette
• "Inner Thoughts with Patrick Ness" Featurette
• "The Source of Silence" Featurette
• "Citizens of Prentisstown" Featurette
• "Establishing Shot with Ben Seresin" Featurette (4K Exclusive)
• "The Music of Chaos Walking" Featurettes
• Deleted Scenes with Optional Audio Commentary

Final Score: ​

Chaos Walking may have had a cohesive story line in it in some iteration of the script, but after 4 years of production delays, reshooting LITERALLY 50% of the movie, and Lionsgate dumping the film on us with almost no fanfare pretty much says it all. It’s a movie that exists, and I doubt many people will actually remember it 6 months down the road. Sad but true. The Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic, and while we didn’t get the 4K UHD to review (Lionsgate didn’t seem to send out 4K product this go around), I can only imagine how fantastic it must look. This pains me to say, Chaos Walking doesn’t have much going for it beside the fact that it’s a completely unoffensive movie. It just “is”.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Demian Bichir, David Oyelowo, Mads Mikkelsen, Nick Jonas
Directed by: Doug Liman
Written by: Patrick Ness, Christopher Ford
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Studio: Lionsgate
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 108 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: May 25th, 2021

Recommendation: Low Rental

 

[Sonnie]

The trailer looks pretty interesting. Might be a Prime watch tonight.

 

[Epoxy1]

I never even received a press release for this. Maybe I should count myself as lucky

I do like both of the stars though so I may have to stream it at some point.