Review: Chappie

Set in a future South Africa where robots designed by the Tetravaal Corporation comprise the police force. Robot designer Deon (Dav Patel) has been trying to perfect an artificial intelligence and believes he has finally worked it all out. Unfortunately, Tetravaal CEO Michelle Brady (Sigourney Weaver) won’t allow him to use one of the police robots to test it out, preferring he stick to making killing machines. Meanwhile, a trio of oddball would-be robbers (Yo-Landi Vi$$er, Ninja, and Jose Pablo Cantillo) are having trouble plying their trade with the rather successful police robots thwarting their every attempt. This leads them to kidnap Deon, who has just managed to get his hands on a robot that was damaged in the trio’s latest heist attempt and installs his newly developed A.I. chip into it. These annoying twits think the robots must have an ‘Off’ switch and that a smart fella designer like Deon should be able to help them out with that. He tries to show them that it doesn’t work like that, and in the process activates the newly A.I. fitted robot, which he names ‘Chappie’ (voiced by Sharlto Copley). Chappie, due to the way the A.I. works, starts off as a childlike innocent, and is easily led astray by the unscrupulous, crude robbers, who try to recruit Chappie in their crimes, angering Deon. However, if Deon is correct, Chappie should eventually be able to think and even feel for himself. That’s if he doesn’t get himself destroyed hanging out with no-good types and helping them commit robberies. While all of this is going on, Deon’s unscrupulous, military-minded rival Vincent (Hugh Jackman) slowly works out what Deon has been up to, and conspires to sabotage things so that his more hardcore military robots will become the robots of choice moving forward, rather than Deon’s police bots.

 

I was about the only person in the world who hated Neill Blomkamp’s dopey first film “District 9”, and one of the only people in the world who kinda liked his follow-up “Elysium”, even if I’m still not sure what the hell Jodie Foster was up to with her stiff performance and awkward accent. Now he’s decided to blend “Short Circuit” (and a little “Short Circuit 2”), “RoboCop”, and “A.I.” for this 2015 flick, his third film. It’s better than it sounds and a lot better than it looked in the trailer, but it’s still a bit uneven, and two supporting performances from poorly chosen non-actors really hurt it.

 

It’s actually not the rip-off it initially appears to be, the closest it gets to ripping anything off is when the characters played by Dav Patel and Hugh Jackman have their little internal squabble over whose robot technology should be used. That’s clearly a steal from “RoboCop”, with Sigourney Weaver playing Dan O’Herlihy, pretty much. When Jackman’s ED209-ish robot turns up, it’s pretty overt. That said, in practise, Jackman’s robot would kick ED209’s arse for sure. Other than that, I think the film is enough of its own film to not be called plagiaristic, so much as it has its clear influences. I do call bullshit on Hugh Jackman claiming to be sporting a mullet haircut in this film. As someone who kept a mullet hairstyle on and off for…far too many years, I can honestly say that there’s not nearly enough ‘party at the back’ to go with the ‘business at the front’. Those familiar with that hairstyle will know exactly what I mean. It looks more like a ‘faux-hawk’ with a bit of length at the back.

 

Although he seemed a bit “RoboCop” meets ‘Johnnny 5’, I’ll admit that Chappie is an interesting low-tech police robot...in theory. Sharlto Copley was terrific in “Elysium”, but isn’t an actor of the calibre of Andy Serkis, and can’t manage to motion-capture (or voice) an interesting performance in the role. His voice work is a bit forgettable, really. Anyone could’ve been doing it, and frankly the character is taken to all the most obvious and uninteresting places. There’s too much devoted to him learning hippity hop speak and profanity, like a corny fish-out-of-water thing. I hate that sort of comedy, more often than not (I liked it in “Short Circuit 2”, but I was 8 and haven’t seen it since), and when you add the irritating hippity hoppers…ugh. Spare me. Blomkamp had the potential for something interesting there, but he chooses to focus too much on his dopey Seth Effriken hippity hop pals than the intellectual, humanistic Patel. I think that’s a real mistake (And apparently the director refuses to work with Mr. Ninja again, after he proved to be quite the dick on set. Even Jackman, nicest guy in the world apparently got tired of his shit. If Hugh doesn’t like you, then I don’t like you either!).

 

Still, the robots are pretty terrific-looking, the FX here are a significant upgrade from the cheapo “District 9”, that’s for sure. The human cast has its ups and downs, but Dev Patel is ideally cast as the kindly, well-meaning inventor, and Hugh Jackman makes for a surprisingly enjoyable and surprisingly intimidating villain. He’s clearly enjoying the opportunity to play a bad guy in this one, not to mention hanging on to his natural accent (He ramped up the ocker a bit more in “Australia”, here it seems more natural). Seth Effriken hippity hop stars Yo-Landi Vi$$er (yes, that’s how it’s spelled!) and Ninja are by far the weakest links in the cast. They can’t act, they’re shrill and irritating, and major buzzkills to be honest. Their every moment on screen is excruciating, and I doubt we’ll see either of them (Yo-Landi in particular seems to find the very word ‘acting’ to be foreign to her) ever again in a film. I don’t know what the director was thinking there, but it drags the film down considerably. Also, why does Blomkamp include subtitles for scenes in which people are speaking clear and coherent English? I don’t find the Seth Effriken accent terribly hard to decipher, and I hope that’s the case for most.

 

Better than the “RoboCop” remake, and perhaps the film “Automata” (review forthcoming) wanted to be, this one’s wildly uneven, but there’s quite a bit to like here and there. The robots are pretty cool, the photography is thankfully stable, and Hugh Jackman makes for a good villain. However, the decision to cast a couple of hippity hoppers who seriously and aggressively cannot act, hampers things considerably, as does the lack of Sigourney Weaver. Watchable and significantly better than “District 9”, but not entirely satisfactory. Blomkamp co-wrote the screenplay with Terri Tatchell (AKA Mrs. Blomkamp, who worked on “District 9”).

 

Rating: C+