Chaos Walking is a dramatic sci-fi built entirely around two half-baked ideas:
- What if your thoughts manifested into a weird silk-screened screensaver that floated above your head 24/7 like the world’s most embarrassing Snapchat filter?
- What if Fahrenheit 451 and Equilibrium had a bastard child — but the hospital forgot to hand the kid a personality or any meaningful worldbuilding on the way out?
Noise
Alright, let’s break down the first gimmick — the Noise™.
In this world, every man’s thoughts just… appear above his head like a constant little cloud of mental diarrhea. Which, okay — that’s a pretty solid sci-fi concept if you actually do something interesting with it.
But they don’t.
Instead, the Noise is basically just the movie’s way of screaming “Get ready for a whole lot of Tom Holland talking to himself!”
The worst part? These dudes aren’t even thinking anything profound. It’s literally just “Girl. Girl. Girl. Girl. Girl.”
Like bro… WE GET IT. You haven’t seen a woman in years. But at some point, I’d love to hear a single deep thought rattling around in one of these hillbilly space brains.
They do sprinkle in some cool ideas about how people can manipulate each other’s Noise — kind of like mind control, but with a big ol’ I’m too lazy to explain how this works sticker slapped on top.
Imagine someone saying the word “cheese” 50 times in your head until you start questioning if “cheese” is even a real word anymore — that’s basically the entire power system of this universe.
Where Are the Women?
Oh, you want to know why there aren’t any women on this planet?
Watch the movie.
No seriously — watch the movie.
Or don’t, because I can tell you the answer right now and save you two hours of your life.
SPOILERS
They killed them all.
Why?
Because men couldn’t handle the fact that women didn’t have Noise.
That’s right — these dumbasses found out women don’t have swirling thought bubbles above their heads and collectively went “Well if I can’t read her mind… time to genocide.”
What kind of incel Reddit fanfiction plotline is that?
Characters (if you can even call them that)
Tom Holland (Todd)
Tom is out here doing Tom Holland things™ — you know the drill:
- A little springy
- A little awkward
- Perpetually one bad decision away from asking “Mr. Prentiss… I don’t feel so good.”
The dude is trying his best, but the script hands him a character arc made out of soggy cardboard. His entire personality boils down to:
- Mom dead
- Be a good man
- Be a strong man
- Horny
That’s it. That’s the whole character.
The only growth he experiences is thinking really hard at the end one time.
Daisy Ridley (Viola)
Her whole performance is just running, breathing heavily, and occasionally yelling “Goddammit Todd!”
I respect Daisy for cashing this paycheck without a shred of shame — but let’s be real — she had less character development than one of the horses they rode in on.
Nick Jonas (Davy Prentiss Jr.)
Why the fuck was Nick Jonas in this movie?
Did he win a contest or something?
Mads Mikkelsen (Mayor Prentiss)
Mads Mikkelsen walked into this movie like the one dude who actually read the script and realized he was in a flaming dumpster.
And you know what? He acted accordingly.
He gave the exact amount of effort this movie deserved — which is to say, bare minimum villain vibes with just enough gravitas to make you think he’s about to do some crazy shit…
But then he doesn’t.
Alien Side Quest (Why Even Bother Edition™)
At one point, the movie goes,
“Oh shit, we forgot to put aliens in this alien planet movie.”
So they drop in some CGI alien guy for five minutes, who does absolutely nothing except vaguely imply they aren’t the bad guys — and then they never show up again.
What the fuck was the point of that?
If this was supposed to set up some kind of Chaos Walking Cinematic Universe, please know that I would rather personally fund its cancellation than ever see that sequel.
The Ending
Todd finally learns to weaponize his Noise at the last second by…
Wait for it…
Thinking about his mom really hard.
That’s literally the final boss battle.
This man defeats the big bad by spamming “My mom loved me!” in his own head like he’s trying to make Facebook memories kill someone.
Final Thoughts
There’s a whole movie hiding somewhere deep inside this script — one that actually explores what it would mean to live in a world where every thought is visible, where privacy doesn’t exist, and where people’s inner demons could literally kill them.
But that movie doesn’t exist.
Instead, we got a weird puberty metaphor wrapped in a half-assed dystopia where the most exciting thing that happens is Tom Holland imagining a snake one time.
If you’re looking for deep sci-fi?
You’re in the wrong place.
If you’re looking for a thrilling adventure?
Also no.
If you’re looking to waste two hours of your life watching Spider-Man hallucinate snakes and Nick Jonas trying to act like a serious villain?
Boy, do I have the movie for you.
Rating: 2.7/10
One point for Mads Mikkelsen
One point for the snake
One point for the exploding ice cream truck
Would rather listen to Todd say “cheese” 50 times in a row than watch this again.
