CHAOS WALKING : Tuesday 9th March 2021.

I saw 'CHAOS WALKING' at my local multiplex this week. This M Rated American Sci-Fi action adventure film is Directed by Doug Liman whose prior film making credits take in the likes of 'Swingers' in 1996, 'The Bourne Identity' in 2002, 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' in 2005, 'Fair Game' in 2010, 'Edge of Tomorrow' in 2014, and 'The Wall' and 'American Made' both in 2017. This film is based on the Sci-Fi trilogy 'Chaos Walking', adapting its first book, 2008's 'The Knife of Never Letting Go' by Patrick Ness. First announced in 2011, the film had undergone several rewrites with Liman later announced as the Director in 2016, with principal photography fully started and finished around 2017. Originally set for release on 1st March 2019, it was removed from schedule to accommodate the films' reshoots in April 2019 following poor audience test screenings. It saw its World Premiere in South Korea on 24th February this year and was released in the US and Australia last week. Costing US$100M to produce, the film has so far grossed US$7M and has garnered mixed or average Reviews. 

Our film opens up on a distant habitable world (not unlike planet Earth), known as New World in the year 2257 AD. We are first introduced to Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) walking through the woods with his trusted dog in tow. On the path into Prentisstown, where he lives he comes across Aaron (David Oyelowo) a radical preacher riding his horse. Aaron gets down off his horse and thumps Todd squarely in the face sending him reeling backwards. This is because of 'The Noise' - a force that puts everyone's thoughts on display and for everyone to see and hear. Clearly Aaron was none too pleased at the noise emanating from Todds head. Aaron mounts his horse and heads onward, leaving Todd to collect his thoughts and continue into Prentisstown. Once there Davy Prentiss Jnr. (Nick Jonas) siddles up on horseback and chastises Todd who retaliates with the thought of huge snake rising up against him which causes Davy's horse to buck throwing him off. Appearing shortly afterwards is David Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen) the Mayor of Prentisstown, who tells the two young lads to stop playing, and commends Todd for his clever snake thought.  

Returning to his farm that night and over dinner with Ben Moore (Demian Bechir) and Cillian Boyd (Kurt Sutter) his adoptive fathers, Ben tells Todd that he is needed to work the farm the next day. The next morning while Todd goes to the barn in search for some tools, he spies a mystery figure dressed in orange jump out of a barn window and leg it into the woods. Todd gives chase and comes across the scene of a recently downed spacecraft whose wreckage is strewn over a large area. His thoughts are to immediately advise David Prentiss of his findings, who rapidly organises a search party for the mystery man. 

Returning to the crash site David Prentiss, Todd and a bunch of other men scour the scene salvaging what serviceable technology they can, whilst searching for a girl, Prentiss has quickly determined. Gingerly seeking out the mysterious figure Todd comes across a girl (Daisy Ridley), and is taken aback because he has never seen a girl before. It turns out that the alien species who inhabited New World, known as the Spackle, released a germ that killed all the women and unleashed 'The Noise' on the remaining men. Todd's own mother was killed by the Spackle shortly after he was born. The girl does not speak, but chooses to run in a bid to escape. 

It's not long before David Prentiss and his men catch up with the girl, and take her back to Prentisstown. There she is questioned and we learn that her spacecraft burned up on entry into New World's atmosphere and the rest of her crew all perished. David has ulterior motives for his line of questions - in particular his interest in the mother ship which carries four thousand people and its means to get them off New World. Following an incident in which the girl is left alone with Davy Jnr., the girl again escapes and from under the building where she is hiding she can easily overhear a conversation David is having with some others saying that it is in everyone's interests to capture the girl, to do it quickly before she is able to contact the mother ship, and that she poses a threat to them all. 

While David is off organising a search party, the girl lays low in the barn of Todd's farm, unbeknownst to him. He goes inside and discovers her, and tells her that he doesn't want to harm her, is there to help her and to remain out of sight. He then tells his fathers Ben and Cillian, who reluctantly agree to harbour the girl, but tell Todd that he needs to get far away from Prentisstown and to go to Farbranch another community some distance away. Ben shows him a map which Todd commits to memory, and is told not to tell anyone at Farbranch that they are from Prentisstown. It's not long however, before David arrives at the farm demanding to know the whereabouts the girl. Todd gives away the girls location in the barn through his noise. Inside the barn the girl has hot-wired a motorbike and makes her escape on it. Todd jumps on a horse and follows in hot pursuit, duly followed by a posse of David's men. David meanwhile shoots Cillian in the stomach and he lies there dying in Bens arms.

After falling down a steep gully in the woods, the motorbike is trashed and the horse suffers a broken leg which sees Todd put his trusted steed out of its misery. They continue on foot, and camp out in the rain overnight. The girl introduces herself to Todd as Viola Eade and says she has never seen or felt rain before. It took her mother ship sixty-four years to travel from Earth to New World. She was born on it, as were her parents who have subsequently died, and it was her grandparents who set forth from Earth all those years ago in search of new worlds to colonise. 

They venture deeper into the forest trying to find the path to Farbranch. They come across a clearing and a Spackle alien. Todd and the Spackle fight with Todd gaining the upper hand and holding the Spackle's head under the water of a nearby stream and stabbing away furiously at the alien. Viola urges Todd to stop. He does so reluctantly, as the Spackle gets up, recovers himself and walks away nonchalantly glancing back over its shoulder as it does so. 

Eventually they come to Farbranch and they are surprised to find a community that has sheep in a paddock, grapes growing on trellised vines, and a big contingent of women and girls. The mayor of the town is female too - Hildy Black (Cynthia Erivo) who takes in the pair and provides them with safe harbour, despite the ruling that any man from Prentisstown entering Farbranch will be given the rope (ie. hanged). When Todd lets slip through his noise that he is in fact from Prentisstown, the menfolk want to string him up immediately, but Hildy says that he's just a boy and therefore the rule doesn't apply. It's here we learn one evening that Ben slipped Todd's mothers journal into his pack before he set off. He confesses to Viola that he cannot read and was never taught, in the belief that hearing others mens thoughts was all the education he would ever need. So Viola reads the journal and it is revealed that David Prentiss engineered the execution of all the woman, because the menfolk couldn't bear the women knowing their every thought, while the men couldn't bear not knowing what their women were thinking. The next day David rocks up to Farbranch with his posse and a stand-off ensues with Hildy and her community. 

David demands to know the location of the girl, and sends Ben in to retrieve her from a storage facility. Ben uses his noise to project an image of Viola to appease David momentarily so giving her and Todd the opportunity to escape. Hildy had previously told Todd that the next community, Haven, contains a means of communicating with the mother ship, so they venture forth. In the meantime, Todd and Ben argue saying that he now knows the truth behind the slaying of all the women and why did Ben lie to him all these past years. Ben is distraught, and offers to make amends to allow their escape, even if it means sacrificing himself. They come to a river bank upon which is tied a two man barge. They see this as a means of evade their pursuers but Aaron catches up with them on horseback and follows them into the river. Viola can't swim, and approaching a set of rapids Aaron latches onto Viola and drags her off the barge with Todd attempting to beat off the preacher. In the white water Viola is dragged under the upturned barge and she is separated from Todd and Aaron. Todd resurfaces and rescues Viola while Aaron emerges on the other side of the embankment and holds Todd's dog under the water drowning it. 

Collecting themselves and gathering their thoughts, they continue onwards coming to the remains of a downed mother ship that was the first in the fleet that landed initially on New World years ago. It is half buried and completely wrecked, but Viola says that there is a means of communicating two levels down that will still be active. They both climb down into the bowels of the former ship and locate the communication device, but there is no signal as the antennae is down. Todd offers to climb up several levels to reconnect the antennae, which he does successfully, but from on high notices David's posse approaching. In the meantime Aaron has re-emerged and gets into a fight with Viola as she is attempting to reconnect. Needless to say its doesn't end well for Aaron who is last seen screaming that he has been baptised by fire - literally! Viola connects with her mothership once the antennae is restored. Todd has clambered down and is confronted by David. Todd attacks David with a knife, David shoots Todd in the shoulder as he is running for cover, and Viola appears and pushes David over the edge of a badly damaged wing sending him falling several storeys below into the guts of the spaceship - presumably to his certain death. 

Viola's mothership then appears in the sky above them. Todd comes round on the mothership having been out of it for several days, his shoulder wound having been treated and almost healed with Viola looking on. They both look down on New World and see a new community in the throes of construction. 

'Chaos Walking' isn't a bad film, but it's also not that great. For a start there is very little by way of world building here given that this film is set 230+ years into the future and New World has the look and feel of our very own planet Earth, even though it is supposedly sixty-four years away. And this Sci-Fi, dystopian action drama part Western is a muddled concoction of teenage angst, wannabe romance and a wilderness survival movie that is aided along by the pairing of two young talented screen actors in Holland and Ridley intent on going their own way following their big budget franchise outings of recent years. And Mads Mikkelsen who is always watchable despite his character being undercooked does manage to be the glue that binds the film together, with mostly surplus to requirement performances from Oyelowo and Erivo regrettably. As for the Spackle who supposedly inflicted the Noise on the male population, well they barely get a look in save for one sequence when a fist fight breaks out between Todd and an one armed indigenous alien that ends as quickly as it started - enough said (and seen) it seems! Doug Liman who has enjoyed many successes throughout his career here offers up an interesting premise, with well enough realised set pieces but it lacks energy, urgency and emotion and ends up being conventional, predictable and lacking in substance, clearly not helped by its troubled shoot and protracted delays. 

'Chaos Walking' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 4th March 2021.

The 78th Golden Globe Awards honour the best in American television of 2020, as well as the best in film in 2020 and early 2021, as chosen by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The ceremony took place on 28th February, nearly two months later than usual, because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema and on television. This was the first virtual bi-coastal ceremony, with Tina Fey Co-Hosting from the Rainbow Room in New York City, and Amy Poehler Co-Hosting from The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. This year marks the fourth occasion that Fey and Poehler have Co-Hosted the ceremony. 

The winners and nominees for the main feature film awards are as given below:-

Best Motion Picture : Drama

* Awarded to 'NOMADLAND', beating out 'The Father', 'Mank', 'Promising Young Woman' and 'The Trial of the Chicago 7'.

Best Motion Picture : Musical or Comedy

* Awarded to 'BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM', beating out 'Hamilton, 'Music', 'Palm Springs' and 'The Prom'.

Best Performance in a Motion Picture - Drama : Actor

* Awarded to CHADWICK BOSEMAN for 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom', beating out Riz Ahmed for 'Sound of Metal', Anthony Hopkins for 'The Father', Gary Oldman for 'Mank' and Tahar Rahim for 'The Mauritanian'. 

Best Performance in a Motion Picture - Drama : Actress

* Awarded to ANDRA DAY for 'The United States vs. Billie Holliday', beating out Viola Davis for 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom', Vanessa Kirby for 'Pieces of a Woman', Frances McDormand for 'Nomadland' and Carey Mulligan for 'Promising Young Woman'. 

Best Performance in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy : Actor

* Awarded to SACHA BARON COHEN for 'Borat Subsequent Moviefilm', beating out James Cordon for 'The Prom', Lin-Manuel Miranda for 'Hamilton', Dev Patel for 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' and Andy Samberg for 'Palm Springs'.

Best Performance in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy : Actress

* Awarded to ROSAMUND PIKE for 'I Care a Lot', beating out Maria Bakalova for 'Borat Subsequent Moviefilm', Kate Hudson for 'Music', Michelle Pfeiffer for 'French Exit' and Anya Taylor-Joy for 'Emma'.

Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture : Actor

* Awarded to DANIEL KALUUYA for 'Judas and the Black Messiah', beating out Sacha Baron Cohen for 'The Trial of the Chicago 7', Jared Leto for 'The Little Things', Bill Murray for 'On the Rocks' and Leslie Odom Jnr. for 'One Night in Miami'. 

Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture : Actress

* Awarded to JODIE FOSTER for 'The Mauritanian', beating out Glenn Close for 'Hillbilly Elegy', Olivia Coleman for 'The Father', Amanda Seyfried for 'Mank' and Helena Zengel for 'News of the World'.

Best Director

* Awarded to CHLOE ZHAO for 'Nomadland', beating out Emerald Fennell for 'Promising Young Woman', David Fincher for 'Mank', Regina King for 'One Night in Miami' and Aaron Sorkin for 'The Trial of the Chicago 7'. 

Best Screenplay

* Awarded to AARON SORKIN for 'The Trial of the Chicago 7', beating out Emerald Fennel for 'Promising Young Woman', Jack Fincher for 'Mank', Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton for 'The Father' and Chloe Zhao for 'Nomadland'. 

Best Original Score

* Awarded to TRENT REZNOR, ATTICUS ROSS and JON BATISTE for 'Soul', beating out Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for 'Mank', James Newton Howard for 'News of the World', Alexandre Desplat for 'The Midnight Sky' and Ludwig Goransson for 'Tenet'.

Best Animated Feature Film

* Awarded to 'SOUL', beating out 'The Croods : A New Age', 'Onwards', 'Over the Moon' and 'Wolfwalkers'.

Best Foreign Language Film

* Awarded to 'MINARI' from the USA, beating out 'Another Round' from Denmark, 'La Llorona' from Guatemala, 'The Life Ahead' from Italy and 'Two of Us' from France.

For the complete run down of all the glitz, the glamour, and the television awards too, you can visit the official website at : https://www.goldenglobes.com

This weeks three latest release new movies coming to your local Odeon, kick off with a Sci-Fi action adventure offering set in the near future but on a different planet but not unlike our own where women have been wiped out leaving only a population of men who live with the constant 'Noise' . . . until that is a female arrives on the scene and changes everything! Next up is a Swedish film in which a female voice tells the everyday stories of different people - a reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendour and banality. And we wrap up this week with an animated feature from the House of the Mouse where in a realm known as Kumandra, a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilisation, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the three latest release new movies as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'CHAOS WALKING' (Rated M) - is an American Sci-Fi action adventure film Directed by Doug Liman whose prior film making credits take in the likes of 'Swingers' in 1996, 'The Bourne Identity' in 2002, 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' in 2005, 'Fair Game' in 2010, 'Edge of Tomorrow' in 2014, and 'The Wall' and 'American Made' both in 2017. This film is based on the Sci-Fi trilogy 'Chaos Walking', adapting its first book, 2008's 'The Knife of Never Letting Go' by Patrick Ness. First announced in 2011, the film had undergone several rewrites with Liman later announced as the Director in 2016, with principal photography fully started and finished around 2017. Originally set for release on 1st March 2019, it was removed from schedule to accommodate the films' reshoots in April 2019 following poor audience test screenings. It saw its World Premiere in South Korea on 24th February this year and is set to be released in the US this week too. 

In Prentisstown, sometime in the not too distant future, Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) has been brought up to believe that the Spackle released a germ that killed all the women and unleashed the 'Noise' on the remaining men. After discovering a patch of silence out in the swamp, his surrogate parents immediately tell him that he has to run, leaving him with only a map of New World, a message, and many unanswered questions. He soon discovers the source of the silence, a girl, named Viola Eade (Daisy Ridley), and so 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 dark secrets of New World. Also starring Mads Mikkelsen, Demian Bichir, Cynthia Erivo, Nick Jonas and David Oyelowo. The film cost US$100M to produce.

'ABOUT ENDLESSNESS' (Rated M) - this 2019 Swedish drama film is Directed by Roy Andersson who has been making feature films, short films and documentaries since 1967 with his feature film output taking in 'Songs from the Second Floor' in 2000, 'You, the Living' in 2007 and 2014's 'A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence'. The film saw its World Premier screening at the Venice International Film Festival in early September 2019 where it won the Silver Lion for Best Directing, among its total haul of four award wins and another twelve nominations. The film is a reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendour and banality. We wander, dreamlike, gently guided by a female narrator. Inconsequential moments take on the same significance as historical events: a couple float over a war-torn Cologne; on the way to a birthday party, a father stops to tie his daughter's shoelaces in the pouring rain; teenage girls dance outside a cafe; a defeated army marches to a prisoner-of-war camp. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presenting all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence. The film has garnered widespread critical acclaim.

'RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON' (Rated PG) - is an American computer animated action adventure fantasy film Produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Animation Studios and is Directed by Don Hall (whose previous directorial outings are 2011's 'Winnie the Pooh' and 2014's 'Big Hero 6') and Carlos Lopez Estrada (whose previous film making credits are 2018's 'Blindspotting' and 2020's 'Summertime'). Long ago, in the world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. But when sinister monsters known as the Druun threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity. Now, five hundred years later, those same monsters have returned and it's up to a lone warrior, Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), and her pet pill bug companion Tuk Tuk (voiced by Alan Tudyk), to track down the last dragon in order to finally stop the Druun for good. However, along her journey, she'll learn that it'll take more than dragon magic to save the world—it's going to take trust as well. Also starring the voices of Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae Kim, Sandra Oh and Benedict Wong. The film is released Stateside this week too and will also be concurrently available on Disney+ with Premier Access.

With three new release films this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead, at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-