Hollywood has tried to adapt countless successful literary sagas over the years. The problem is that for every ‘Harry Potter’ there is at least another pair that doesn’t even make it past the first installment. That was what happened in the case of ‘Chaos Walking’, one of the biggest disasters in science fiction movie history that has just arrived in the Netflix catalog.
A failure on all levels
On paper, ‘Chaos Walking’ had everything to succeed, because in addition to adapting a successful novel by Patrick Ness, it had Doug Liman (‘At the edge of tomorrow’) behind the cameras and in front of her two of the highly sought after young actors: Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. It seemed like a safe bet and that led to more than 100 million dollars being invested in moving it forward, but something went wrong, being so obvious that you only have to remember one fact: its filming took place in 2017 and it did not premiere until 2021.
The attractive dystopian premise of ‘Chaos Walking’ soon collapses when it becomes clear that those responsible for the film are not very clear about what to do with it, to the point that one of its star resources ends up turning repetitive and tiresome after just a few minutes of footage. Also, the narrative foundations are very weak and along the way there are so many script holes and the drawing of the main characters lacks any kind of shine.
In the end, what remains in ‘Chaos Walking’ is a jumble of poorly developed ideas that becomes so heavy that it seems to last three hours when it falls significantly short of two. It doesn’t measure up visually either., although perhaps everything related to the work of direction is the least criticized of the function. Of course, no kind of sense of rhythm despite having a premise that lent itself to constantly increasing tension until the time came to resolve everything.
I am not forgetting either the insignificance of the secondary characters or that Mads Mikkelsen He ends up being somewhat ridiculous in his occasional appearances throughout the footage of ‘Chaos Walking’. No wonder the critics ended up destroying it mercilessly, while the public showed an alarming lack of interest that resulted in a worldwide box office of just 26 million dollars and multimillion-dollar losses estimated at 112 million. Almost nothing.
In Espinof: