Chappie

“Don’t laugh, I’m being cool.”

How many films have tried to delve the depths of the possibility of artificial intelligence? From the cuteness of Johnny 5 and Wall*E to the cold hearted science of The Terminator and Transcendence, all the way to the potentially deep reaching human drama of Blade Runner or Artificial Intelligence, there is no shortage of projects attempting to shed light on it. It is a staple of science fiction, and a good one, since the possibilities of the advancements of the future shed light on where humanity has been and where it might be headed. Sci-fi golden hopeful Neill Blomkamp was of course destined to take a stab at it, but his worn out style, a bland cast of characters, and a dreadful script will make sure that Chappie does not enter the hall of great movie robots anytime soon.

Of course Blomkamp opens his story in Johannesburg, where a robotic Scout police force, created by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), has crushed the majority of criminal activity and made weapons manufacturing company Tetravaal very rich. Incredibly successful but still unfulfilled, Deon uses every other waking moment of his life working on a successful AI program out of his home. His success in cracking the code is suddenly derailed, as his attempts to download the program into a mortally wounded Scout are co-opted into a small gang’s plan to kidnap Deon and force him to deactivate the police force so that they can pull one last big heist. Forcing Deon to continue his project so that the gangsters can teach their new baby robot to be indentured muscle, Scott 22 comes alive and is renamed Chappie. From then on, the sentient robot is caught in the middle of a tug of war between Deon’s high-minded philosophical expectations and the gangster’s alluring indoctrination towards crime and, above all else, coolness.

The heart of the problems with Chappie lie within the fact that it is an amalgamation of at least a dozen different concepts, most of which could fuel their own movie. Instead, minimum lip service or visual flair is paid to several ideas that might go somewhere, but are instead immediately abandoned before moving onto the next one. An opening action scene which follows a squad of police as they work side by side with the Scouts during a drug raid is a visually stimulating piece of sci-fi fun with some intriguing ideas. We don’t see much of the Scouts after that, and the effect their presence has on the human population is barely revisited. I assume that Blomkamp had a specific direction he wanted to take Chappie, but I find impossible to discern which direction it was when hardly anything that happens in the plot seems to be of any consequence ten minutes later.

There’s too much going on to warrant any dissection on what each character is bringing to the film. On the one hand are gangsters Ninja and Yolandi Vi$$er (played by Ninja and Yolandi Vi$$er, members of the rap-rave group Die Antwoord), who bring up Chappie as parents at odd with one another. Ninja is a deceptive wannabe who tricks Chappie at every turn to break his promise with his maker and become an unstoppable hoodlum. Yolandi fills in as a caring mother figure complete with bedtime stories and total abandonment for her own safety. Blomkamp has stated that his initial idea was simply to have Die Antwoord bring up a sentient robot. While that concept might have worked in theory, it would have had to been in a much battier movie to work. Instead a thoughtful science fiction game changer is stuffed underneath a commercial for the group and their “poor but cool” way of life.

On the opposing end are Sigourney Weaver as Tetravaal’s bottom-line worshipping CEO (never seen that before), and Hugh Jackman as God-fearing rival programmer Vincent Moore, who has it out for Deon ever since the Scouts cost him funding for his own overkill robotics project. From Tertravaal’s laughable lack of security to the complete lack of logic with anything Jackman does, the movie fails at giving us intriguing villains who pose a genuine threat. When Jackman’s project is finally unleashed in what I had hoped would be a rewarding action sequence on par with the mech suit from District 9, it instead makes no effort to separate itself from the Robocop rip-off it so shamelessly is. I wondered if each of the human characters were meant to represent human traits or emotions which Chappie must himself either conquer or perfect, be they love, pride, deceit, fear, hate, vanity, or greed. But nothing with flesh and blood leaves a mark here, unless it is Jackman’s horrifically distracting mullet and cargo shorts.

What might have saved Chappie, beyond an ability to commit to its outreaching themes, is the title character. An impressive feat of visual effects, the philosophical and emotional implications of Chappie are nevertheless incredibly muddled and annoyingly executed. I came to the conclusion early on that the filmmaker’s mean for us to watch Chappie evolve throughout the film from a helpless infant to the next step in human evolution. Instead, his arc passes him from influence to influence like a metallic Pinocchio, one whose decisions in light of recent events make little sense. Sharlto Copley’s motion capture work is impressive, but his decision even in voicing Chappie as an overly adorable baby to an insecure teenager fail to connect. There is one section in the middle of the movie that initially grabs us, as Chappie is abandoned in the cold, cruel world and escapes from a gang of abusive children only to wind up begging for his life as he is tortured by Vincent, While it tugs at the heartstrings to see Chappie frightened and helplessly screaming that he has genuine fears, this emotion stems not from a connection we have with the character, but because pretty much no movie character asides from Nazis deserves that kind of treatment.

Whenever I dislike a movie so fiercely, I always find myself explaining to people that I wanted to like it just as adamantly. I adore District 9 and while I found many faults in Elysium, I enjoyed it on a basic entertainment level well worth revisiting every few years. I felt like there was a good movie to be made in Chappie, but a total lack of direction forbid me from latching onto any one thing besides how impressive the design of the Scout robots are. I will not spoil anything, but the discovery made by our heroes in the film’s final moments that change the course of humanity forever are handled as though they are an afterthought, and entirely suck out an semblance of weight or drama from what came before. I still feel hopeful that Blomkamp can deliver another great movie, and am very excited for his involvement in the next chapter of the Alienfranchise. But it’s my opinion that unless he begins learning some lessons from the shortcomings of Elysium and Chappie, the lobby cutouts advertising his latest films will read “From the visionary director of District 9” for a very long time.

MY VERDICT: * 1/2