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Canberra Today 19°/24° | Tuesday, March 19, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Movie review / ‘Chaos Walking’ (M)

“Chaos Walking” (M) **

A CONDENSED summary of director Doug Liman’s filming of a screenplay by Patrick Ness and Christopher Ford adapting Ness’s novel “The Knife of Never Letting Go”, the first in a young-adult science fiction trilogy, might run thus: “extra-terrestrial sci-fi in 2274 AD”. 

The IMDb says it in more detail thus: “Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) discovers Viola (Daisy Ridley), a mysterious girl who crash lands on his planet, where all 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 as Todd vows to protect her, he will have to discover his own inner power and unlock the planet’s dark secrets.”

Does that mean that somewhere out there in deepest space, there’s a planet populated by children of same-sex parents? 

Long before humans walked on Earth, certain immutable natural laws applied. Among them is that male mammals do not give birth. Where did those woman-less blokes come from? An outer-space cowboy movie with possibly the longest list of credits in cinema history, “Chaos Walking” makes no attempt to offer an explanation. 

The cast includes always-watchable Swedish actor Mads Mikkelsen as chief villain Mayor Prentiss, determined to prevent dilution of the status quo; David Oyelowo as one of Prentiss’ henchmen… whoa there, what’s the point of listing both male and female cast of a movie originating from a book written for children or young adults of both genders, set in a dystopian world where only one gender is tolerated? 

And if you think that the preceding paragraph delivers a confused muddle of ideas, wait until you see the movie. Or don’t bother, which may be the better option.

At all cinemas

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Ian Meikle, editor

Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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