Movie Review: Chappie

Chappie (2015)

R

2 Stars out of 5

Writer/Director                 Neill Blomkamp
Writer                                 Terri Tatchell
Cinematography               Trent Opaloch
Music                                   Hans Zimmer

Sharlto Copley                   Chappie
Dev Patel                             Deon Wilson
Ninja                                     Ninja
Yo-Landi Visser                  Yo-Landi Visser
Jose Pablo Cantillo            Amerika
Hugh Jackman                   Vincent Moore
Sigourney Weaver            Michelle Bradley
Brandon Auret                   Hippo
 

Neill Blomkamp wrote and directed his first film, “District 9” in 2009. This was Blomkamp’s first full length feature film. Co-written with this wife, Terri Tatchell and produced by Peter Jackson (“Hobbit” trilogy, and many others), "District 9" made use of Blomkamp’s background as an animator and his South African youth. He was able to create a visual treat that proved his technical competency with CGI but also allowed him to use Apartheid as a political subtext to what otherwise was an entertaining science fiction yarn. “District 9” was a seamless blend of the escapism style of movie-making with a story that had a level of social importance worth watching. Following “District 9”, Blomkamp and Tatchel created “Elysium” in 2013. “Elysium” was yet another science fiction film with a message: access to health care. “Elysium” was far less a commercial and critical success as the Oscar nominated (Best Picture) “District 9”. In 2014, Blomkamp/Tatchell have evidently decided to drop their previous efforts at sub-text and focus on escapism alone with their latest movie, “Chappie”. Unfortunately, they have also failed to deliver even this with the derivative, largely inane and illogical “Chappie”.

As with “District 9”, Blomkamp/Tatchell have created a full length film based on a short they did in the mid-2000’s. “Chappie” is based in a near future Johannesburg, South Africa that has recently switched from a human police force to a robot force. These robot police are referred to as scouts and were designed by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) for a corporation run by Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver). Deon has a corporate rival, Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman) whose larger robot appears to be a cross between the warbots of the Empire of Star Wars and Robocop. The scout robot police force have reduced crime by such an extent that the local crime boss, Hippo (Brandon Auret) is failing to steal as much money as his ego demands. He therefore decides to threaten a minor criminal, Ninja (Ninja) to give him $20M. Ninja and his team/family of Yo-Landi (Yo-Landi, like Ninja from the South African rock group Die Antword) and Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo) decide to kidnap Deon and force him to help them overcome the robo-police; this would allow them to steal again, evidently. Deon in the meanwhile has been working on creating an Artificial Intelligence. At first he’s frustrated, but after staying up all night and drinking a Red Bull, he does it! Not only has he invented an AI, it all fits on a PC's hard drive – cool. (This will be super-ceded later in the movie when one of the characters figures out how to transfer a complete human consciousness and place it on a thumb drive - you really have to admire the characters' software skills in this movie. I guess its because they can type so fast?) Ninja and company eventually kidnap Deon and his makings of a scout with an AI. By daylight they have coerced him to finishing such a robot. Yo-Landi, soon to be known as Mommy, names the robot Chappie (Sharlto Copley). Let the excitement ensue.

Needless to say an hour long series of illogical decisions and actions by all involved take place. And who could have predicted it, there are lots of guns, explosions and people getting shot by both flying robots and robot's with Ninja skills at the movie’s climax. I won’t reveal the exact ending; oh, that’s right, it’s irrelevant. To Blomkamp’s credit, the CGI that depicts Chappie is remarkable. I grant him full credit on the technological achievement of bringing him to the screen. But the writing and acting by all surrounding this character is astonishingly bad: from Dev Patel who was charming in “Slum Dog Millionaire” (2008) but whose character Deon is utterly unbelievable in terms of acting and writing in this movie to Sigourney Weaver who must surely be the most stupid CEO character in the history of cinema. Perhaps Sigourney was just warming up for Blomkamp’s pending revival of the “Alien” series. And then there is Hugh Jackman (“Les Miserables”, 2012, one of my favorite musicals of all time) playing an ex-black ops kind of character (Vincent), one that wears a pistol on his belt to evidently remind us of his tough guy persona. There is little that is logical about Vincent as he ultimately decides to place the city and its inhabitants in peril of their lives in order that he might demo his competing robot. Really; is there some hidden universe out there in science fiction land where decisions like these (and plenty of others I am sparing you from) make sense to somebody? Is it really necessary to abandon all logic in order just to reach another pointless climax where a flying robot can shoot cluster bombs, etc., etc.?

Sadly, Blomkamp is failing to live up to his start with “District 9”. I fear he is falling into the category of one hit wonder from the music world. “Chappie” might well be renamed “Crappie” as my daughter mistyped when she first told me of this movie. It is really not worth watching for anything beyond the CGI of the robots, and that will only take 2-3 minutes of your time, not two hours. Two hours of my life, I want back.