Synopsis
Two unlikely companions embark on a perilous adventure through the badlands of an unexplored planet as they try to escape a dangerous and disorienting reality, where all inner thoughts are seen and heard by everyone.
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Cast
- Tom HollandTodd Hewitt
- Daisy RidleyViola Eade
- Mads MikkelsenMayor David Prentiss
- Demián BichirBen Moore
- David OyelowoAaron
- Kurt SutterCillian Boyd
- Cynthia ErivoHildy
- Bethany Anne LindKaryssa Hewitt
- Nick JonasDavy Prentiss Jr.
- Ray McKinnonMatthew
Recommendations
- 67
Entertainment Weekly
Mikkelsen has played iconic villains before, and while Prentiss isn't nearly as memorable as Hannibal Lecter or Le Chiffre, he still manages to imbue Chaos Walking with a sense of danger. - 58
The Film Stage
While Chaos Walking has its faults, it is very much of ilk with YA novel adaptations such as Maze Runner and Divergent, while perhaps lacking the immersive depth of The Hunger Games, or at least the first couple entries of that series. Thankfully, its two charismatic leads share just enough chemistry to add the requisite stakes for a decently thrilling ride. - 50
Slant Magazine
Beneath its perfectly entertaining surface, the film is a mess of contradictions that fails to live up to its own potential. - 42
IndieWire
Despite its strange conceit and a few buried hints as to what a more courageous film might have done with it, the movie version of the first Chaos Walking book (published as “The Knife of Never Letting Go”) is such a dull and ordinary thing that it can’t help but get engulfed by the shadow of its own missed potential. - 40
Screen Daily
While this medium-budgeted action film clearly hopes to launch a cinematic series, the YA trappings feel familiar, despite some intriguing ideas about toxic masculinity and adolescent insecurity. - 38
Chicago Sun-Times
This adaptation of the young adult science fiction novel “The Knife of Never Letting Go” (the first in a trilogy) is sunk by the nearly unwatchable and unlistenable execution of the main premise. - 30
TheWrap
There’s no shortage of imaginative sci-fi details or of talented actors on-hand, but the film boils down to characters we barely get to know chasing each other and yelling. That it hardly matters who’s being chased or what, exactly, is being yelled — mostly “Stop her!” and “AAAUUUGGGHHH!” — is just part of the trouble here. - 30
The Hollywood Reporter
The characters are uninvolving, the emotional stakes never fully take hold and the physical action invariably promises more than it delivers.
