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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nIt was weird two weekends ago when the movie theaters in NYC reopened and this movie was playing on all the IMAX screens. I thought the dazzling animation (and Disney branding) of \u201cRaya and the Last Dragon\u201d would have put that film in such prime real estate, but for whatever reason, theaters thought \u201cChaos Walking\u201d should get those slots instead. I noticed this past weekend that theaters were giving their IMAX theaters to \u201cTenet,\u201d as if they had more confidence in that six-month-old disappointment than either the thus-far-underperforming \u201cRaya\u201d or \u201cChaos Walking,\u201d which has been #3 at the domestic box office since it opened. The film hasn\u2019t even been able to beat \u201cTom and Jerry\u201d for the last two weekends, and that movie is free to anyone with an HBO Max subscription.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film takes place on a distant planet called New World, which is seemingly inhabited only by men. The men are subject to \u201cThe Noise,\u201d a series of audible words and holograms that convey their innermost thoughts. Most of the older and supposedly \u201cstronger\u201d men have learned to control their Noise so as to remain enigmatic. But Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) is so darn young and emotional that his Noise is louder than anyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One day Viola (Daisy Ridley) crash lands on New World, the sole survivor of a scouting mission that reports back to a huge spaceship that can carry a whole population. The men of New World are of course intrigued by the visitor, with Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen) deciding that Viola can be the community\u2019s ticket off this planet he and the men have depleted. He could just ask Viola nicely if the spaceship people would be kind enough to let them tag along when they come to rescue her, but for some reason he decides to take the villainous route and threaten Viola with violence. The kindhearted Tom rescues her from the Mayor\u2019s clutches, and he and Viola go on a journey to get her to a long-dormant crashed spaceship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tom and Viola form an unlikely bond, even though he has problems with his Noise, and she has never known anyone or anything outside of her spaceship, even though she has way better cardio than the outdoorsy Tom. As for his Noise, it announces his insecurities at every opportunity, though it usually relates to how unsure he is about his survival skills. A few times it lets Viola know that he thinks she has pretty hair and wants her to kiss him, but this is a PG-13 movie and that\u2019s as amorous as he\u2019s allowed to get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film is an adaptation of a dystopian Young Adult book series, and it would have been right at home among \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d and its ilk about five years ago. There\u2019s a running joke with futuristic films like these that characters with political and religious titles are always bad guys, and here we get two: The Mayor and Preacher (David Oyelowo). My theory was that one would get killed in this film and the other would be saved for an upcoming sequel. That\u2019s right, this is supposed to be a franchise, with future installments likely to flesh out characters that are underdeveloped here, like The Mayor\u2019s son (Nick Jonas, barely consequential here, though Jonas gave the best performance in 2019\u2019s \u201cMidway\u201d). But I don\u2019t think those sequels are going to happen. The series will probably wind up abandoned like \u201cDivergent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The best thing I can say about \u201cChaos Walking\u201d is that it\u2019s onto something. Holland and Ridley are likeable leads, though it can be frustrating to see Spider-Man and Rey Skywalker struggle to learn the lesson that they\u2019re more powerful than they think. The Noise is a fresh idea for an obstacle to overcome (\u201cWhat Women\/Men Want\u201d notwithstanding) and I thought a surprisingly high number of Noise-related jokes landed. But it isn\u2019t enough to save the film from poor pacing, predictability, and a lack of action. Maybe you\u2019re better off seeing \u201cTenet\u201d on the IMAX screens after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChaos Walking\u201d is rated PG-13 for violence and language. Its running time is 109 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver It was weird two weekends ago when the movie theaters in NYC reopened and this movie was playing on all the IMAX screens. I thought the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":47874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}