Mini Film Review – Chaos Walking

Yesterday I watched Chaos Walking; and it was alright! Directed by Doug Liman, and starring Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, and Mads Mikkelsen; Chaos Walking is a dystopian action film based on The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. The film focusses on young man Todd Hewitt, who lives in a world, where everyone can see each other’s thoughts. Having read the entire Chaos Walking series a few years ago, I was interested to see how well these films would adapt the story. Well, they did some of it! It’s an alright film, the story sort of exists, the characters are well done, and there is plenty of drama, discovery, relaxing journey scenes, and some great visual effects. What’s missing are the surprises! The film decides to travel down a different route, and reveal all to the audience as soon as possible. It diverts from the main villain of the book, and focusses more on the main villain of the series. Not entirely bad, Mads Mikkelsen does a good job, but his character development in the books, comes about thanks to surprises you don’t see coming, where as this film just removes surprises altogether! You know what’s coming, you can see where the rabbit hole is miles away, and as a result the film plods down a more commercialized route of movie blockbusters; instead of closely adapting what is a delicately intricate book. It has it’s moments, but it would possibly be for the best, if this film wasn’t an adaption of a really good book!