In recent years, dystopian films have taken over the world of cinema with movies such as The Hunger Games, Interstellar and The Maze Runner. Chaos Walking is the newest dystopian movie to hit to theaters and introduces a new and fascinating concept.
Chaos Walking ponders an interesting question of what a world where men’s thoughts are on display would be like. Not only can you see people’s thoughts, but it’s only the men’s thoughts that are on display in what they call “the noise.” You can see and hear every thought a man is having, but that isn’t the case for women who do not have this problem.
Todd Hewitt, played by Tom Holland, spends most of the film trying to “control his noise,” which means he doesn’t want other people to know what he’s thinking. I couldn’t imagine a world where every thought I had was on display for anyone to see. I feel like many people are pretty unfiltered in today’s world but if we could see every single thought someone had it would be pretty problematic. We might be uncomfortable with so much truth.
To be fair, this isn’t the first movie to have gendered mind-reading as a central premise. There was a movie in 2019 called What Men Want (a remake of an earlier movie called What Women Want) that has a similar premise where a woman can hear men’s thoughts. So far it does not seem like the dystopian take on the premise is doing well in the eyes of moviegoers.
The Guardian states, “It is a mostly drab attempt to cash in on the post-Hunger Games thirst to watch dystopian tales of attractive yet grubby young people rallying against the system.” I, too, see where they are coming from when they say it is trying to cash in on the “post-Hunger Games hype.” Many movies (and novels with related films) today are trying to ride the coattails of franchises like The Hunger Games.
This movie had some great scenes and had some big stars playing the lead roles. The plot was a little hard to keep up with throughout the movie and the ending left much to be desired. I enjoyed the film overall, but I do not think it will be on the list of top movies this year. I went on opening weekend and was one of the very few people in the whole theater so maybe wait to see this once it hits a streaming service.
