Deon Wilson: Dev Patel
Ninja: Ninja
Yolandi: Yo-Landi Visser
Yankie America: Jose Pablo Cantillo
Vincent Moore: Hugh Jackman
Michelle Bradley: Sigourney Weaver
Hippo: Brandon Auret
Columbia Pictures presents a
film directed by Neill Blomkamp. Written by Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell.
Running time: 120 min. Rated R (for violence, language and brief nudity).
I’ve always been of the
belief that expectation is an enemy of art. It closes off the mind to
possibilities the artist may have envisioned that the viewer may not if they’re
anticipating something else. As such, I’ve become pretty good at turning off
the grand expectations movie studios are so insistent on instilling in their
audiences through trailers and the buzz movie media outlets provide before a
movie’s release. It’s not that I don’t pay attention to these things, because I
am a fan first and a critic second; but once I’m there in the dark awaiting the
start of a movie I let it all go and simply take in the movie.
That being said, I’d like to
talk about the expectations behind the new science fiction movie “Chappie” a
little before I delve into my expectationless opinion of it. This is the third
movie by South African sci-fi wunderkind Neill Blomkamp. His debut film
“District 9” was a summer sleeper hit and a rare science fiction Best Picture
Oscar nominee. His follow-up “Elysium” was not as special—although I felt it
was enjoyable—and recently Blomkamp has revealed some disappointments he had
with that project.
Now, he comes out with
“Chappie”, easily the worst titled of his films so far. The problems with its
cutesy title—a name shared by its main character—are twofold. First of all, it
tells nothing of the subject matter of the movie. The titles of his first two
films don’t give much in terms of subject matter hints either, but they do give
an impression of something that has to do with the plots. “Chappie” for all we
know could be the newest Muppet in Jim Henson Productions’ arsenal, when in
fact the word “arsenal” might give a better hint of the subject matter of
Blomkamp’s rather innocent sounding film title. Its second problem is that its
title and main character’s name actually betrays the film’s serious subject matter
by adding a childish element to it.
The reason the expectations
created by the title of the film are important in this case are because the
film suffers from the very problems the expectations create. While it wants to
be about the very serious matter of weaponizing an artificial intelligence, it
can’t escape the childlike qualities inherent—not just in its title—but in its
plot as a whole. It seems Blomkamp
has felt the need to rehash a well-explored premise about A.I. in film—that of
the unpredictable nature of an intelligent creation that can be utilized as a
weapon—and applied too much logic to it. He’s realized that such an entity
would first see the world as a child before it matured; but it would be a
weapon from the outset.
It’s actually quite an
intriguing argument Blomkamp sets upon, and he does so with meticulousness. He
feels out the likelihood of such an event occurring by taking us back to
Johannesburg—the setting of “District 9”—in another near future where crime has
gotten out of control. The police deploy a robot force that is effective in
decreasing the crime rate. The designer of these police droids, Deon Wilson
(Dev Patel), has also created an A.I. that he tries to convince the
manufacturer’s president (Sigourney Weaver) to allow him to develop. As a
weapons manufacturer, she has little interest in a robot that can learn to
paint and write poetry.
Meanwhile, a band of thieves
hatch a plan for a big score, which involves kidnapping the designer and
holding him for ransom. They enact their plan just as Deon is stealing a robot
scheduled for destruction in which to upload his A.I. program. The thieves
decide the robot is more valuable and Deon agrees to let them have it as long
as they let him teach it. The reason the robot was scheduled for destruction is
because its battery has become fused to its chassis and will run out of power
within a week. This puts our heroes into a time constraint and introduces the
concept of mortality to the A.I. adding additional learning material in the
process.
Ninja and his girlfriend Yolandi
Visser—apparently two real life Johannesburg personalities playing versions of
themselves—lead the thieves and become surrogate parents to the robot. It is
Yolandi who comes up with the unfortunate name Chappie. So now, along with the
concept of rearing the A.I. as a child to begin with, Blomkamp has also
introduced the idea of nurture versus nature by providing two oddball criminals
as Chappie’s major environmental and nurturing influences. So now we have what
is essentially a weapon behaving as a child and being reared by a strange sappy
woman and a tattooed brute who wants to raise an original gangsta. The results
are an awkward clash of a cartoonish juvenile take on the thug life with
heartstrings. While Sharlto Copely does a great job capturing the gait of a
child in his motion capture work, it just stands to show how awkward it is to
combine the childlike elements of the character with his gangsta posturing.
I haven’t yet mentioned the
subplot involving Hugh Jackman as another testosterone counterpoint to Deon’s
notions of the poet A.I. Jackman’s Vincent Moore is a competing designer in the
same company trying to sell the police force on his human controlled design for
an urban assault droid. This plotline brings too many “Robocop” parallels into
the film, making it seem even more like Blomkamp is just rehashing previously
attempted plot points from other movies. This storyline also culminates in an
explosion driven climax that draws focus away from his more lofty thematic
elements.
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