i'll say this for chaos walking -- it certainly has a hell of a premise behind it. i've never read the trilogy by patrick ness that this sci-fi film is based on, but it sounds like a strong idea and i'm definitely intrigued enough to perhaps check it out at some point. but based on all the acclaim it has, i have to believe that this film does the source material a disservice. because as intriguing as the set-up is and as talented as a cast as it has, this sure is a mediocre effort. it feels like that assessment has to lay at the feet of both the studio and director doug liman. ness and christopher ford wrote the script for the film, and you can see how the ideas are valiantly struggling to get out. the idea of a world where all mens' thoughts are broadcast and all women seem to be dead is a strong one, and there are moments in the plot where you see that come through. but the film also went through significant reshoots due to poor test screenings, and it seems like most of the interesting stuff probably got sliced out. instead we have the base concept and then a pretty standard dystopian film that sprouts from it. limon's hand guides this into a generic chase movie. limon similarly fell flat with locked down earlier this year and at least this has better material to work with, though it still falls short with the only major appeal coming from the cast. and make no mistake, the cast is good. poor tom holland is having a rough year between this and cherry, both of which see him give better performances than his role deserves. holland strikes up a good rapport with daisy ridley and the rest of the cast is pretty solid to great, but they're trying to lift a film that has no real life to it, embodying characters who don't have enough depth to be compelling. it would be disingenuous to say that this is a terrible film; there is some stuff to enjoy in here. it feels like a proper science fiction film and the effects are neat, but it's all in service of something more benignly bland than this thing should really be. i didn't hate chaos walking by any measure, but i will probably barely remember it before too long.