It's the year 2257 and various mostly failed settlements dot a planet six decades away from Earth. Todd (TOM HOLLAND) is an orphaned teenager who was born there and raised by Ben (DEMIAN BICHIR) and Cillian (KURT SUTTER) and has never seen a woman, what with being told the humanoid type creatures that live there -- the Spackle -- killed all of them. The defining element of the world, though, is that it somehow causes the thoughts and dreams (known as "the noise") of all males -- and only the males -- to be heard and seen by all.

Todd still hasn't mastered trying to mask that to keep his thoughts private, including from his nemesis, Davy (NICK JONAS), the son of Mayor David Prentiss (MADS MIKKELSEN), or Aaron (DAVID OYELOWO), a fire and brimstone preacher who's teaming with angry thoughts and warnings of what's coming next for sinners. Todd's inability to hide his thoughts eventually reveals that he's just discovered the wreckage of a scout spaceship and its lone survivor, Viola (DAISY RIDLEY).

It's not long before everyone in Prentisstown learns of her presence, with the Mayor desiring to gain control of her parent ship should it arrive. Realizing that won't be good for her, Todd decides to go on the run with Viola and sets off for the settlement of Farbranch run by Hildy (CYNTHIA ERIVO) where the newcomer hopes to find a means to contact her people. But they must contend with Mayor Prentiss and his followers who won't give up their chase of the two.

Hearing voices other than your own in your head is usually not a good thing. Okay, it's never a good thing as it usually means there's some sort of severe physical ailment causing such aural hallucinations. Or it means a form of mental illness is likely the cause. Then again, perhaps it's just the result of a voodoo curse put on you. Whatever the case might be, it's likely to drive you mad.

It's a concept that's been used in movies, but we're going to narrow that down to those that have some sort of supernatural exterior catalyst. In an old "The Twilight Zone" TV episode titled "A Penny for Your Thoughts," it stemmed from a coin landing on its edge that somehow caused the protagonist to hear everyone's thoughts.

In the comedy "Bruce Almighty," Jim Carrey's character gets that ability when he takes over as God and hears everyone's prayers. And in "What Women Want," Mel Gibson's chauvinistic advertising executive gains the ability to hear what the title says thanks to an encounter between him, a hairdryer, and a bathtub of water.

In those films and others, we meet the characters before the ability takes place and then watch how that changes them in some way for the better. That's not the case in "Chaos Walking," the long-gestating adaptation of Patrick Ness' "Chaos Walking" trilogy and specifically the 2008 installment of that, "The Knife of Never Letting Go" (which, in full transparency, I have not read).

First announced a decade ago and then going through multiple script revisions (the first being by Charlie Kaufman that I imagine was quite a bit different than what was originally settled on), principal photography, reshoots, delays, and more, the flick now arrives with Doug Liman as the director and Ness and Christopher Ford as the screenwriters.

Unlike those other films, we're thrust into a world where hearing others' thoughts already exists and has for some time. It's the New World, a not-that-successful first settlement attempt on a planet sixty-four years from Earth. A few small towns are scattered about, but we start in Prentisstown so named after the Mayor, David Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen), who rules over the all-male place where everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts.

That results in a cacophony of voices -- both heard and seen as colorful wisps of gas emanating from the residents' heads -- that might just drive viewers as mad as some of the characters, such as the preacher (a one-dimensional and thus wasted David Oyelowo) who's got nothing but fire and brimstone on his mind and doesn't think highly of our young protagonist, Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland).

He's a teenage orphan who's being raised by two men, Ben and Cillian (Demián Bichir and Kurt Sutter), and has yet to get the hang of cloaking his thoughts (unlike Ben or the mayor), meaning he often simply resorts to repeating nothing but his name in his head, much to the annoyance of the mayor's bully son, Davy (Nick Jonas).

Todd's lack of mental control and focus quickly belies his secret of having discovered a scout spaceship that crashed nearby, with just one survivor, Viola (Daisy Ridley). He's never seen a female before, having been told that the local humanoid-type creatures collectively known as the Spackle had killed all the women but left the men untouched.

She's freaked out by all the audible thoughts -- most notably Todd's -- although hers can't be heard, something the film doesn't ever feel the need to explain. What follows is the mayor wanting to use her to contact her mother ship and then take control of that to further his command of the land, all while the awkward Todd tries to help the newcomer and his thoughts about her rage out of control.

There's obviously some potential in all of that (both story-wise and thematically in terms of thoughts about the opposite gender), and maybe it works better in the novel(s), but it's something of a mess in movie form. Rather than being clever or even funny, the audible thought bubbles, so to speak, end up annoying and distract from engaging better with the characters (Holland fares a bit better than Ridley who unfortunately is given little to do with hers).

It then simply turns into a prolonged "on the run and chase" sort of dystopian flick that's neither terribly engaging nor exciting. It just, well, is, and likely won't result in the rest of the trilogy story making it to the screen. Wait, did I just think that aloud? What's that voice in my head? Oh, it's just me saying you can probably find something better to watch. "Chaos Walking" rates as a 4 out of 10.