By Sandie Angulo Chen , based on child development research. How do we rate?
Disappointing, violent adaptation of acclaimed YA book.
Parents need to know that Chaos Walking is based on Patrick Ness' 2008 young adult dystopian/sci-fi novel The Knife of Never Letting Go. Spider-Man's Tom Holland stars as Todd, a teen living in Prentisstown, an all-male colony on a planet where a disease/phenomenon known as the Noise caused…
Lots of violent scenes, most including futuristic guns/blasters. Knife and hand-
Lots of use of "s--t" ("dumb s--t," "holy s--t," "stupid s--t," and insult "s--t
Sex, Romance & NudityTodd imagines kissing Viola more than once (the thoughts are projected), and she
Products & Purchases Not present Drinking, Drugs & Smoking Not presentEncourages communication, teamwork, perseverance. Just because a thought occurs
Positive Role ModelsTodd can be reckless and misguided, but he's brave and selfless when it comes to
Lots of violent scenes, most including futuristic guns/blasters. Knife and hand-to-hand fighting. Mercy killing of an injured horse off camera (the shot is heard). A dog is purposely drowned. An angry man repeatedly tries to grab and hurt Viola. A man slaps Todd, who's also shot at and shown bleeding. Several characters die on camera from gunshot wounds. One man seems to plunge to his death, another is set on fire and dies.
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Lots of use of "s--t" ("dumb s--t," "holy s--t," "stupid s--t," and insult "s--t shoveler"), as well as "son of a bitch," "pr--k," "what the hell," "beat his ass," "kicked his ass," "damn," "crap," "oh my God," and "hell." Sexist insults: "you're weak, like a woman," "you hide your thoughts like a woman."
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Todd imagines kissing Viola more than once (the thoughts are projected), and she says "I'm not going to kiss you." He also keeps thinking about how pretty she is or how her "yellow hair" looks. They do eventually kiss. Nonsexual partial undressing: Since he doesn't realize it's odd to change in front of a girl, Todd strips his clothes off to hunt in a body of water; viewers see his lower back and quick glimpse of the top of his butt (it's implied that Viola sees him fully naked). He also wakes up shirtless in one scene.
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Encourages communication, teamwork, perseverance. Just because a thought occurs to you doesn't mean you have to act on it. Your thoughts matter, but they don't define you.
Todd can be reckless and misguided, but he's brave and selfless when it comes to defending those he cares about. His fathers each sacrifice their own safety to help him. Viola is enterprising, intelligent, skilled. She's brave and learns to deal with Todd's Noise and not to judge him for every single thought that pops into his head.
Parents need to know that Chaos Walking is based on Patrick Ness' 2008 young adult dystopian/sci-fi novel The Knife of Never Letting Go. Spider-Man's Tom Holland stars as Todd, a teen living in Prentisstown, an all-male colony on a planet where a disease/phenomenon known as the Noise caused all of men's thoughts to be heard or projected. The human women were all killed by the planet's native inhabitants, so when a young woman named Viola (Daisy Ridley) is the only person to survive a scouting ship's crash landing, her presence wreaks havoc on Prentisstown and endangers her and Todd. While it has themes of communication, teamwork, and perseverance, violence and peril drive the story: The men of Prentisstown are armed, dangerous, and ready to kill. Characters are shot, threatened, injured, and even set on fire. Characters die on camera. An armed man makes menacing overtures toward a woman that seem like a prelude to sexual violence. Two animals are killed: One is shot out of mercy, while the other is murdered in anger. There's also a lot of strong language, much of it in the men's heard/projected thoughts, particularly variations on the word "s--t." Todd frequently thinks about how pretty Viola is and imagines kissing her more than once. In one scene when he takes off his clothes to hunt in the water, viewers see his lower back and a quick glimpse of the top of his butt. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
Chaos Walking
Movie Review
Chaos Walking
Official trailer
Based on 5 parent reviews
September 18, 2021I thought the movie was brilliant, I loved it so much. Some critics say you can’t tell the difference between thoughts and the character speaking, you can, just not as much to begin with. I personally believe this is done intentionally to connect you to the main character and put you in the exact same position she is in, confused. Another thing is the message throughout. It could be very easily seen as ‘toxic feminism’ because “it’s making all men seem bad” when actually that isn’t the case, their is plenty of good men in this. It’s showing a select group of men, who I believe are meant to represent the ‘Misogyny’ in society. Also when you think about how men’s thoughts are aloud and women’s are not, it could be a representation of how woman are often silenced. I also noticed that the only way to silence your thoughts from being heard by others is to; not be weak, train your brain, no emotion, act a certain way, be aggressive. All things men are thought they must be in order to be a man and excepted into society. A character often says “be a man” when trying to silence the voice, as if that’s the only values they have ever been taught. That pride is everything. As a very wise woman once said “when men stop needing to be aggressive in order to be excepted into society, women will stop feeling the need to be submissive… men, gender equality is your issue too” - Emma Watson. I believe the movie has a deeper message of gender equality, I do acting and this would be called Brecht, this movie uses some of his techniques in a brilliant way. The movie also got a good amount of action in. I have so many more thoughts and examples from the movie however I don’t want to spoil it so I just say watch it yourself. And personally this is one of the best movies I’ve seen in along time :)
April 24, 2021There is a very disturbing scene with a pet and the good people are killed sadly. If you have a more sensitive child/teenager, avoid this movie.
CHAOS WALKING is based on the first book in Patrick Ness' acclaimed YA sci-fi trilogy. It takes place in a distant future in which humans have escaped Earth to colonize other planets. Todd (Tom Holland) lives in a remote village called Prentisstown on one planet, where a mysterious condition has affected only the men: In a phenomenon known as the Noise, their every thought can be heard or displayed. Todd is the youngest man in Prentisstown because the planet's native species killed all the women when he was a baby. One day Todd stumbles upon a young woman named Viola (Daisy Ridley), the sole survivor of a scouting ship's crash landing. He alerts the town leader, Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen), who keeps her for questioning. The men's Noise alerts Viola that she's in danger, so she escapes, and Todd decides to help her. Todd's adoptive fathers (Demian Bichir, Kurt Sutter) reveal that Todd and Viola must leave for Farbranch, the next town over, a place Todd didn't even know existed. Prentisstown has an ugly secret, his father explains, and Todd and Viola must make it out in order to survive.
What worked on the page doesn't work on the screen in this adaptation, despite the stellar cast and fascinating source material. It's remarkable what an impressive ensemble director Doug Liman assembled for this movie. In addition to all the actors already mentioned, there's Cynthia Erivo as the mayor of Prentisstown's neighboring town, David Oyelowo as Prentisstown's sole spiritual leader Aaron, character actor Ray McKinnon in a supporting role, and Nick Jonas as Mayor Prentiss' son, Davy. When Chaos Walking was first announced, it seemed like the project had so much promise. But ultimately it's not an easy story to translate because of the Noise and because of the various subplots that took Ness three books to address but that aren't explained at all here. It should also be noted that, as with the Percy Jackson movies, the main characters are aged up several years. (In the book, they were just 13.)
Fans of Ness' series will be more disappointed by the adaptation than those who've never read the books, but, either way, there's no nuance here and no time to really get to know the characters or their motivations. Rather than revealing and compelling as written in the books, in the movie, the Noise is downright annoying. Todd also seems whiny and immature when played by an actor older than the character was in the story. Because they speed through their journey, Todd and Viola don't have the same time to explore how different towns handled the Noise and how the gender dynamics could have worked had women survived in Prentisstown. Also, as rushed as some parts of the movie are, the pacing and editing are uneven, perhaps the result of the movie's many re-shoots. Even the end feels tacked on and ambiguous, even though it's fairly unlikely that the other books in the series will ever be adapted as sequels. It's a shame that, given all the talent involved, the movie fails to deliver.
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