Movies: Chappie

Score:  *** out of ***** (C+)

Long Story Short:  Director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) is out with his third feature, and unfortunately his development went in the wrong direction here.  Another sci-fi/action /allegory film, Chappie provides another take on artificial intelligence.  While Chappie the robot is entertaining and interesting, the human characters are all over the place and the script is strikingly bad.  Skip the theater, but its strengths may be enough to make it a worthwhile rental.


It's been far too long since the last time I've seen a movie in the theater!  Unfortunately, I'm also a few weeks late in seeing this one, but maybe you can use it to decide about seeing it on Netflix.  There are one or two more films coming up that I'd like to see, but there probably won't be a lot more until the summer film season arrives (and then I'll be cranking them out!).  I enjoy and am intrigued by, if not enthralled with, the work of Chappie director, who also did District 9 and Elysium.  Despite its getting poor reviews, that and my hunger to see a movie in the theater got me in the seat.  Chappie was directed by Neill Blomkamp and stars Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel and Hugh Jackman.

In the near future, Johannesburg, South Africa is reeling from violent crime and turns to a private company that has developed a robotic police force.  This quickly brings peace to much of the city, though pockets of criminal activity remain.  At the robot company, lead programmer Deon (Patel) is proud of his work but has even bigger plans in mind:  true artificial intelligence.  One night, he thinks he has made a breakthrough so he recovers a robot headed for scrap to test his program.  At the same time, caught between a ruthless ganglord and the omnipresent robot police force, a pair of criminals (Ninja, Yolandi) are desperate for an edge.  It seems Deon and his robot are the answer to their prayers...

The robot, named Chappie by the gangsters, is independent of the authorities but has the bright new - and naive and simple - mind of a child.  Even as Deon does his best to teach the new life form to do good, he encounters another threat from within - one that is not satisfied with the police robot for an entirely different reason.

Chappie has a bizarre yet entertaining cast.  Chappie the robot is the main character - movement and voice work by Sharlto Copley - reminiscent of Caesar's starring role in the new Planet of the Apes films.  Some will find him annoying, but I was entertained.  In fact, I would have preferred an even greater emphasis on him and less on the humans.  Copley (director Blomkamp's muse) does well with the physicality and the tech crew brings him marvelously to life.  He has an appropriate though at times hard to understand voice.  While his personality seesaws a bit too wildly (though I can buy that from an AI), he's almost always fascinating.

The humans could have used a lot more work.  Dev Patel does a decent job in sections, but his part is poorly written (this will become a theme) and it swallows him up.  Hugh Jackman, finally getting to use his native Aussie accent, does a nice job toeing the line of playing up his villain; the script again does a terrible job of trying to "hide" his eventual role.  Ninja and Yolandi of South African "rap-rave" group Die Antwoord play themselves as the gangsters.  They are both way over the top and have little consistency at all in their acting - yet they also serve to give the film an unpredictable, crazy tone that I wish the script had been adapted to fit.  There is a bit of their music in the film, appropriately, and I have to admit some of it is pretty catchy.

Chappie is a sci-fi film that is not particularly original, although it is in keeping with director Blomkamp's signature style.  In fact, the plot structure is essentially the same as District 9 - but much, much lower quality.  The core idea of the film is artificial intelligence, though one of the few positive credits I'll give to the script is its not reveling in the concept itself (we've been here before, after all) and focusing more on Chappie himself (good) and the humans (bad).  The technical achievements and overall artistic vision (I'm afraid I lack a better vocabulary to describe it) are impressive, and there are some genuinely fun moments - my favorite being a sequence of Chappie stealing cars.  However, the script is just awful.  Every one of the human characters is afflicted by cliche scenes only to careen wildly into entirely inexplicable behavior a few minutes later.  The pacing is fine for the first third or so, but then completely leads the audience adrift - setting up climactic moments and/or tension only to suddenly switch focus or fizzle out, and so on.  I was impressed by one particular plot development late in the film (no, not the one at the very end, if you've seen it), but it is poorly crafted into the film and so it loses much of its impact.

***

Although the Rotten Tomatoes score prepared me for what I was getting into, I was still disappointed with this third feature film from Neill Blomkamp.  I consider him a "mini-Nolan", as he has a distinct, creative vision in his movies that separates him from most other filmmakers in Hollywood.  And Chappie had many elements for a great sci-fi film; great effects and characterization ideas for the robot itself, an interesting setting and cast.  But, again, the script is atrocious.  Blomkamp is one of two credited writers, which makes me think he should maybe steer clear of this role in the future.  Despite all the negativity, I don't actually think you should necessarily avoid this film.  Unlike, say, Lucy, which also had a terrible script, this has a creative tone and more than a few entertaining elements.  It's not worth a trip to the theater, but if you're looking for an interesting (if significantly flawed) sci-fi/action film, you might put it in your Netflix queue.



"Chappie film poster"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappie_(film)#/media/File:Chappie_poster.jpg