Chaos Walking [Blu-Ray]

Director: Doug Liman

Cast: Daisy Ridley, Tom Holland, Mads Mikkelsen

Release Date: May 25, 2021

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 6/10
Disc Rating: 8.5/10

Synopsis:

In the not too distant future, Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) discovers a mysterious girl named Viola (Daisy Ridley). She has crash-landed on his planet, where the women have disappeared and the men are afflicted by “The Noise,” a force that puts all their thoughts on display. In this dangerous landscape, Viola’s life is threatened and, to protect her, Todd must discover his inner power and unlock the planet’s dark secrets in this thrilling action-adventure.

Please Note: Lionsgate Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

‘Chaos Walking’ follows a young man named Todd (Holland) in the future living on a distant planet where the thoughts of men are on constant display via a phenomenon they’ve dubbed “The Noise” and women are no more. But when a young woman named Viola (Ridley) crash lands on the planet and the local men hunt her down intent to eliminate her before she can report to her own people, Todd takes it upon himself to venture out beyond the only home he’s ever known and help her attempt to locate somewhere where she might be able to find radio communication before she’s left behind for good. But as Todd journeys beyond the familiar, he soon begins to uncover terrifying secrets and truths that will change his life forever.

Directed by Doug Liman (American Made, Edge of Tomorrow) from a screenplay by Patrick Ness (TV’s Class) and Christopher Ford (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Cop Car) which was based upon the book “The Knife of Never Letting Go” by Ness, Liman does a solid job overall at the helm of ‘Chaos Walking’ guiding along this quite heartfelt adventure and offering a visually pleasing ride throughout. The film definitely benefits from a well selected cast that includes Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), Tom Holland (Cherry), Mads Mikkelsen (TV’s Hannibal), Demián Bichir (The Hateful Eight), Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale), Nick Jonas (Midway) and David Oyelowo (The Cloverfield Paradox) along with more who each deliver capable and fitting performances for the most part in their respective roles.

‘Chaos Walking’ is a largely enjoyable futuristic tale that almost feels like a western with some futuristic technology within. It often finds itself struggling to make the story work in the right way and at times feels somewhat boggled in its approach but fortunately it finds itself redeemed at times as well with its style and a fairly clever concept and story at its core. Even while playing out in an oddly unbalanced style and making some curious choices, the notable cast led by Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley helps to keep things from falling apart completely and if you can let some of it go and try to simply go along with the ride it manages to serve up a thoroughly entertaining adventure with some real heart and emotion sprinkled throughout. Paired with a least a good few truly rewarding moments, it all helps it to excel from terrible to at least slightly above average. It may not be a perfect film by any means, but it’s also a far cry from horrid and I would definitely encourage anyone intrigued by ‘Chaos Walking’ to try and give it a fair chance and make up your own mind. Even with its troubles it still has enough positive elements and moments to make it worthwhile, boosted by a somewhat touching coming of age tale and adventure that many will likely appreciate.

Overall, ‘Chaos Walking’ is an entertaining and visually stylish futuristic adventure that borrows from westerns and other older styles while still offering some new ideas and fairly clever concepts to work with. It does find itself struggling at times to balance the overwhelming story and collection of characters, but thanks to the talented cast it still evolves into a decent enough coming of age tale that’s worth a look. For fans of the key cast and for those that are already excited for the film but didn’t have the chance to catch it in theaters, I would recommend giving ‘Chaos Walking’ a whirl whenever convenient. Although it probably wouldn’t hurt to rent the film before dropping the money on a blind purchase just to be safe if you haven’t yet seen it. For fans of the film on the other hand, the Blu-ray release arrives sporting great high definition video and audio presentations complimented by a nice collection of supplements and as a whole definitely shouldn’t disappoint.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Chaos Walking’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the film’s original 2.39:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks fantastic as a whole and provides a smooth, clean and richly detailed presentation from start to finish that never suffers from any unexpected faults or issues along the way. It holds up impressively even during the various darkly lit and fast moving sequences throughout, never allowing anything occurring onscreen to become negatively affected or rendered indiscernible. Overall, this is a great high definition video presentation from Lionsgate that shouldn’t disappoint in the slightest.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 channel compatible) soundtrack. Please note that this review pertains solely to the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio presentation. This multichannel soundtrack serves up a clean, crisp and hard hitting audio presentation throughout. It repeatedly takes full advantage of all seven available channels in order to send action elements, nature content and “The Noise” from characters along with more consistently zipping throughout the various speakers whenever appropriate and never causing any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible in the process. Overall, this is a wonderful Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 compatible) soundtrack that sounds great from start to finish and continually contributes plenty of extra tension and fun to the viewing experience.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Chaos Walking’ includes a nice collection of bonus content that fans of the film should appreciate. Included on the release is an ‘Audio Commentary with Director Doug Liman, Producer Alison Winter, and Editor Doc Crotzer’, in addition to a handful of ‘Deleted Scenes’ from the movie featuring an unused Prologue and more, all with Optional Commentary by Liman, Winter and Crotzer (running approximately 45 minutes in length altogether). We are also treated to various Behind the Scenes Featurettes that include interviews/comments with the cast and crew, plus behind the scenes footage and more; they include ‘A Director’s Noise’ (running approximately 18 minutes), ‘Inner Thoughts with Patrick Ness’ (approximately 9 minutes), ‘The Source of the Silence’ (7 minutes), ‘Citizens of Prentisstown’ (10 minutes) and ‘The Music of Chaos Walking’ (4 minutes). The film’s ‘Theatrical Trailer’ (approximately 2 minutes) is also included.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Film Rating: 6/10
Disc Rating: 8.5/10

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‘Chaos Walking’ Arrives on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD on May 25, 2021 & is Now Available to Own on Digital from Lionsgate Home Entertainment

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