Chappie (2015)
In the near future, crime is patrolled by a mechanized police force. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself.
Director:
Neill Blomkamp
Writers:
Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
Stars:
Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman |
Story line
In the near future, Indian born Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), is a high ranking executive in a Robotic Police Force company. When he comes up with an idea to make a self conscious robot named Chappie to protect better, his higher-ups disapprove it. Nonetheless, he makes it and when the company finds out, scraps the robot. When 2 small time criminals planning a $200 million heist find Chappie, they kidnap Deon and force him to program Chappie to assist them in their heist. When power-corrupted military general Vincent (Hugh Jackman) finds out, he rallies all forces to stop Chappie, at any cost that leads to an monumental showdown between Good and Evil.
User Reviews
As may really happen soon(and this is set in the not too distant future, somewhere in time…), and yet goes completely unexamined(and it's not the only compelling concept it fails to do much with), humanoid robots, Scouts(or, y'know, Homeland), largely replace regular police. One falls into the hands of a rather unlikable and one-note trio of criminals whose protagonist status is trying our patience, because of the former, not the latter. Chappie(Copley, sweet and charming, doing both well-integrated motion-capture and voice-work) is granted consciousness, and this innocent, childlike(yet rather powerful, able to kick through brick walls like it's nothing) being deals with different influences and goes through the range of human emotions with us finding ourselves touched, cheering him on, or scared… for or of him.
Blomkamp delivers on both his good and bad tropes, and we end up with something in some ways better than Elysium, and it is thankfully less simplistic, mainstream and ridiculously one-sided, left-leaning(and I say that as a major Liberal). There are major problems with the characters. Moore(Jackman's mullet being as badass a presence as usual – yet here, we're afraid of who he'll hurt and how, instead of hoping he'll get there soon and get one of the really bad people that way), a former soldier who's… Christian? Or is that a joke…? Anyway, he's built a remote-controlled mech suit which is completely overkill for crime fighting(which may be satire of the recent militarization of such) which has been turned down. He has fun, and we vicariously enjoy the taste of the scenery. The other names are wasted, Weaver in particular. And that leaves us with earlier-mentioned obnoxious ones.
The action, whilst largely free of cool guns(don't get me wrong, the various bullet delivery systems on display, especially with how tricked out they are, are badass) is great. The ending and the opening are from different movies – to each other and to this one. Unpredictable and fast-paced to the point where it forgets its own plot threads… the entire climax feels tailored and sacrifices scope in the name of focus, when a few rewrites could have addressed that much better. I do get a bad feeling that Neill is running out of ideas. With all the similarities between his three films, he almost should have pulled a Sin City and placed them all within the same universe.
There is a lot of brutal, violent and disturbing content, as well as a little sexuality and full frontal female nudity(because it can) in this. I recommend this to fans of the subgenre.
