YMMV / Chaos Walking (2021)

• Adorkable: Todd's interactions with and thoughts about Viola - the first girl he's ever seen (that he can recall) and whom he quickly develops a crush on - are hilariously and endearingly awkward. It doesn't help that the Noise means he projects his thoughts to everyone, including Viola, much to his embarrassment.
• Angst? What Angst?: Todd isn't as devastated as one might expect about the probable deaths of his adoptive fathers. While he is upset when they're injured, he doesn't dwell on it (he hopes Cillian is okay after being shot then doesn't really think about him again, while he never thinks about Ben even at the end of the film, instead focusing on Viola). He shows far more grief over his dog's death than either of his dads'.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: It's an adaptation of a Young Adult book that came out over a decade prior to the movie's release and the trailers made it clear it was not an especially faithful adaptation beyond the basic premise, which was off-putting for fans of the novels; some readers were also wary of it being a live-action adaptation purely because the Noise - a key plot element - is difficult to translate well from book to film. Then there's the challenge of it being a teen-oriented dystopian movie that missed that genre's heyday by about five years; a lot of audiences were tired of these kinds of movies and didn't think Chaos Walking had anything much new to offer beyond the 'no women' and mental projection gimmicks (not helping is that many viewers felt these more interesting aspects of the premise were seriously underutilized in the film itself). Combined with all the well-publicized issues behind-the-scenes and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the general lack of interest in Chaos Walking contributed to it bombing at the box office.
• Complete Monster: David Prentiss is the seemingly reasonable mayor of Prentisstown, who is revealed to be a sexist, egotistical mass murderer. In the past, he grew to distrust the women of Prentisstown because they had no Noise, so he eventually led the men to kill all of them, leaving the town a Childless Dystopia that will eventually die out. When a colonist woman named Viola crashes near Prentisstown, Prentiss seeks to capture her to prevent her from bringing more colonists to New World. Pursuing Todd Hewitt as he protects Viola, Prentiss is uncaring when one of his own citizens and a man from another town are killed in his pursuit. When Todd's father betrays him, Prentiss holds him hostage and kills him when Todd refuses to surrender Viola, before trying to kill Todd.
• Critical Dissonance: Most critics weren't impressed at all with the film, while audience reception skewed more mixed-to-positive (critic scores on Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are 38% and 21%, respectively; audience scores are 5.3/10 on Metacritic and 71% on RT, and it has a 5.7/10 on IMDb). While both generally agree it isn't nearly as good as the source material and the plot is messy in places, audiences seem to be slightly more forgiving and willing to acknowledge its merits.
• Fridge Horror: The revelation about the deaths of Prentisstown's women causes quite a bit of this:
  • There's a strong possibility Prentiss murdered the mother of his own son; given he seems only a few years older than Todd (who was a baby during the massacre), Davy likely doesn't remember what happened to his mother and his father has been lying to him about it all his life. Prentiss may not have been the only man to kill a female significant other or family member either.
  • Given there were children being born in Prentisstown around the time of the massacre, it's not unlikely there were some young girls living in Prentisstown. And the men would've killed them along with the adult women.
• Harsher in Hindsight: As noted by several reviewers, the Chaos Walking title ended up being pretty appropriate for the film, considering its notoriously Troubled Production and uneven end result.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A common complaint, especially from those who read the books, is that the story and setting are just too complex and slow-burning to work well in a 1 hour 49 minute film without cutting out or greatly compressing many key components. Lots of people have stated the books would probably be better adapted as a TV show or something similiar, to allow for more time to explain things and develop the characters. It doesn't help that Chaos Walking adapts not just the first book but also takes plot elements from the sequels, so it's trying to squash an entire trilogy into a single film.
• Memetic Mutation: Many jokes were made about Tom Holland being perfectly cast as a boy who projects his thoughts to everyone, due to Holland being somewhat notorious for inadvertently revealing spoilers for movies he's in (in particular the Marvel Cinematic Universe).
• Strangled by the Red String: The movie adds a romance between Todd and Viola but it isn't too convincing as a plot point. We're expected to believe that Todd is so enamoured with Viola he's willing to turn his back on everything he ever knew, put her before his parents and repeatedly risk his own life to help her...even though based on the timespan of the movie, he's only known her for a few days, tops. Based on this, Viola's scant characterization and the general focus of Todd's thoughts about her, his fixation on her appears to largely hinge around finding her "pretty" and the novelty of her being the first woman he's ever encountered, as opposed to anything deeper. Viola also doesn't seem to reciprocate his feelings; though she begins to warm up to Todd near the ending, she mostly appears to be sticking with him out of necessity and finds his attraction to her annoying more than anything. While this is a pretty realistic reaction considering Viola's circumstances and how little they know each other, it doesn't help to sell the romantic subplot as convincing.
• Tearjerker: The death of Manchee, Todd's loyal dog, is one of the most upsetting moments in the film. When Aaron tries to pull Viola off the boat, Manchee jumps into the water and attacks him to protect her. Todd is able to help Viola to shore, but then realizes Aaron has grabbed hold of Manchee and proceeds to hold him upside down beneath the water while he struggles and yelps in terror. Todd tries to save him, but keeps being forced back by the river's current, and both he and the audience can only watch helplessly as poor Manchee goes limp and Aaron lets his body float away. Aaron gains absolutely nothing from this; he just does it to spite Todd and Viola for escaping. The aftermath is sad too; Todd refuses to talk about it to Viola, stoically insisting he was 'just' a dog and stomping off, though it's clear he's just using anger to cover up his grief and not be seen as 'weak'. Viola later finds him sitting by himself, watching a mental projection of Manchee running about happily and she sits with him to comfort him.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Fans of the books were unhappy about the numerous changes made to the plot, setting and characters for the film (considering that the books are acclaimed while the movie was a critical and commercial failure, many of these changes arguably weren't for the better). Particular points of contention include removing Manchee's Noise (as readers felt it was interesting to hear an animal's thoughts and that it helped them grow more attached to him thus making it hit harder when Manchee is killed) and aging up Todd and Viola from tweens to young adults (with book fans feeling it removed some of the power of the story and its Coming of Age/loss-of-innocence drama, and that it only seemed to be done to insert a generic romantic subplot between them).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • As noted by many reviews, the film's central premise is an interesting one, but it ends up squandering a lot of its potential; a lot of the film is dedicated to Todd and Viola being chased through the woods and typical wilderness survival, with concepts like the Noise becoming an afterthought until the climax.
  • The Spackle only show up onscreen once and have little relevance to the overall plot, despite the fact they played such a huge part in making Prentisstown the way it is and the revelation they didn’t actually kill the women, which throws David's claim that the Spackle were the original aggressors into doubt as well. This is especially so given Viola is shown to sympathize with the Spackle and dissuades Todd from killing one of them, which opens up a possibility for an alliance.
  • Prentiss' overall goals and motives are rather vaguely defined, switching between either wanting the new colony ship to land to seize their technology or not wanting them to land because they pose a threat to his power. Many viewers feel that if he'd had a clearer Evil Plan for the protagonists to foil, the movie's story would've been stronger overall.
  • The movie could've mined a lot more drama and tension from Todd questioning whether he can trust Viola due to being unable to access her thoughts; leaning into this more would also have served as extra foreshadowing of the truth about the Prentisstown massacre, given the men's paranoia about the women was a major contributing factor. The film itself barely addresses it, and the only notable tension the Noise causes between the protagonists is Viola getting annoyed by Todd's mental babbling (which is mostly Played for Laughs).
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Even in negative reviews, it's widely thought that Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland both give good performances and that their chemistry was one of the best things about the movie; likewise, Mads Mikkelsen is seen as an effectively menacing villain without descending into hamminess too much.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Viola at some points. When Todd is attacked by the Spackle and fights back with a knife in self-defence, she scolds him by saying: "Your solution for everything is just 'kill it'?". Later in the film, she ends up intentionally killing two people, which kinda makes her a hypocrite. At the same time, her attitude towards Todd's feelings about his mother makes her come off as unempathetic, especially when she says "I lost my parents too, you don't see me yelling about it", when Todd was only thinking about it briefly. It doesn't help that the scene where Viola apologizes to Todd over this was deleted from the final cut.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: While not quite at the same level as "Kate Mara's hair in Fan4stic", the blonde wig Daisy Ridley dons isn't the most convincing; it's much lighter than her eyebrows and doesn't sit properly in some shots. It wasn't even necessary for the plot or character (in the books Viola gets a rather vague physical description, so her hair could theoretically be any color). Some viewers have speculated the filmmakers went with the blonde wig to avoid people associating Viola with Rey too much.

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