What to watch

Sci-fi adventure. With Daisy Ridley, Tom Holland and Mads Mikkelsen. Director: Doug Liman. 10-12PG LPV.

Todd Hewitt (Holland) lives on the planet New World in Prentisstown, a hardscrabbling community made up only of men – all the women were killed by the indigenous population. On this planet, everyone’s thoughts – known as noise – are visible to others as colourful auras and pictures hanging around people’s heads.

Todd looks up to the charismatic mayor (Hannibal’s Mikkelsen), who’s learnt to hide his true thoughts behind a façade. When a ship crash-lands nearby, Todd is astonished to find the only survivor is a young woman (Ridley), whose thoughts he can’t see.

From The Bourne Identity (2002) to Edge of Tomorrow (2014), director Liman is known for his chaotic shooting style, which often requires reshoots to create a coherent story, but so far it’s mostly worked for him.

Unfortunately, thanks to choppy editing and messy storytelling, he can’t paper over all the cracks in Chaos Walking.

Based on The Knife of Never Letting Go, the first in a young adult trilogy by Patrick Ness, Chaos Walking is bursting with plot points, clever concepts and great actors, and it’s a reasonably entertaining movie.

Sadly, though, a lot of these interesting ideas are never properly explored or given enough screen time, with the plot leaping from revelation to revelation without giving you enough time to absorb each situation.

Talented actors and well-known names such as Cynthia Erivo, David Oyelowo and Nick Jonas pop up and disappear from the narrative, hinting that they had much bigger parts which were cut significantly.

Luckily Holland (Spider-Man: Far from Home) and Ridley (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) are as likeable and engaging as ever and you become invested in their story, while the noise concept is used inventively and the set design is top-notch.

It’s just a pity that it all could have been so much better. Sci-fi fans will probably forgive the film’s shortcomings, but if teen dystopias aren’t your cup of tea, deduct a star from the rating.