Chaos Walking is a dystopian adventure film set in the distant future of 2257 on a planet far from earth, though still accessible to humans. When a young girl crash lands into this foreign place, she's surprised that there are no other women there. Able to see the thoughts of the men who find her, she realizes that this is an inhospitable place filled with natives who haven't taken kindly to humans, and men who haven't taken kindly to natives.
On planet New World, there's a human outpost called Prentisstown, which is named after its leader, Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen). He and his son Davy (Nick Jonas) as well as a band of animal skin-clad, horse-riding soldiers guard the settlement from an army of natives that they call Spackle, although an uneasy truce is in place after the Spackle killed all the human females on the planet.
Todd (Tom Holland) is not one of the rough and tumble gunslingers like the bigger guys around. He has a hard time controlling his noise, which is when a man's thoughts literally escape his head in a glowing sensory overload of light and sound. He shows that this can be inadvertently weaponized by creating something to affect the environment around himself.
Viola (Daisy Ridley) crash lands a scout shuttle from Earth in the woods just outside of Prentisstown. Todd had not seen a human woman before discovering her, with the exception of his own mother; so, he is instantly smitten, and his thoughts about her broadcast. But where he sees an opportunity for love, Mayor Prentiss sees a possibility to blast the Spackle, by using the larger spaceship that Viola used to arrive on the planet.
Directed by Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, The Bourne Identity) there's a skilled hand behind the scenes making all the parts move. The cast is plenty talented and game to be shown what to do, and the movie keeps up a brisk pace throughout some very intense visual graphics. However, there could have been more put into the motivation driving the people, especially the fairly two-dimensional villains. More timeouts and breathing room to stop and explore what it's like to be human in an inhumane situation would have been a strong addition.
There are funny moments when Viola can hear Todd's thoughts about her, like a reverse What Women Want. Yet there's not enough time spent on developing the characters nor their relationship to make viewers care about them as the pace picks up and rushes to the finish. While the initial concept is strong, so much time is spent on chase scenes that there's little time for reflection.
The "alien" Spackle are vilified even though humans came to their planet and took over a piece of it. Fair enough, as not every outer space movie can have the social justice of Avatar. But the creatures from another planet are quite silly looking, which is unforgivable in such a serious, big budget feature.
There's a driving pace from start to finish that pushes Chaos Walking forward, no matter how hard it stumbles. Beautiful graphics, a fun dystopian concept and meticulous direction in the action sequences can't stop it from dragging the characters along with the story, rather than having characters who motivate and become the story. The mish-mash blend of space western is fun until it isn't, when the characters have run out of one-liners and it's too late to add enough depth to save itself.