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[tab title="Movie Review"]
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And you thought Jar Jar Binks was annoying.
Neill Blomkamp, the director behind the Oscar-nominated District 9, continues to disappoint in his beloved Science Fiction genre. Having publicly acknowledged that he screwed Elysium up by filming an unpolished script, he moves forward with a mindless movie that fixes none of what made his sophomore effort so underwhelming. In fact, it’s worse. It seriously pains me to admit it, but Chappie is a certifiable “bust” best left in the junkyard.
Let’s re-cap. The strong story in District 9 was so heavy-duty that Blomkamp’s unsubtly behind the camera was effectively masked. The allegorical Elysium, while slick, just failed to impress with its standard sappiness thus the obvious became noticeable. With Chappie, Blomkamp pumps up the volume, completely turns off the smarts, and abandons total cohesiveness with a golly gee whiz techno-babble bullshit narrative that laughably makes little sense. He can do much better.
This Real Steel meets Short Circuit by way of Robocop and Wall-E is stretched over a very long two hours. The metallic E.T. figure who carries the name of the picture is a mind-numbing central figure whose incredibly demented (and not in a good way) journey slams you in the face with blatant pathos and cheap humiliation. Chappie? More like Crappy. (Yes, the movie makes the shots that easy.)
In the near-future Johannesburg (Blomkamp's home town), a robot police force protects and serves the public à la Robocop. Created by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), these robotic Scouts are the future of police protection. When one robot is damaged, Wilson (without purpose) is able to install it with an AI program but the resulting sentient being, Chappie (voiced by Sharlto Copley), is entangled by Mad Maxian goons (one-dimensionally portrayed by South African rappers Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser) who want Chappie’s help with a heist.
All the while, Deon’s colleague Vincent (Hugh Jackman) is growing increasingly pissy because the popularity of the Scout program means their boss (an underused Sigourney Weaver) has no use for his monster invention, a massive human-controlled crime-fighter called The Moose. Whatever will he do? Chappie, like the child that he is seen as by the obnoxious punks, absorbs all of their stoopid antics. Deon sees him as the invention that will lead him to fortune and glory. Vincent thinks he should take orders only. Audiences won’t give a shit and hope everybody dies in some apocalyptic fire.
Regardless of whom the robot reject encounters or how he is dressed (gangsta bling), Chappie simply isn’t worthy of an entire film. He’s an unlovable idiot, grating all the way to the very end. And so is the dull script. As written, the entirety of Chappie is what Vincent wants all robots to be: unthinking. Blomkamp and his writing partner Terri Thatchell (also his wife) unleash a formulaic slice of science fiction pie that is no easy digest as they insult audiences with ethical (and oh so familiar)conversations about man’s responsibility to its creations.
Blomkamp borrows from the techniques of Michael Bay and delivers a maddening mess of unsubtle and sentimental malarkey that, along the way to predictability, thuds audiences upside the head for no good reason. It pretends to be thoughtful but it’s only pandering noise. We don’t need to have man’s inhumanity speech in this one, folks. Chappie is proof enough of humanity’s sadism.
Welcome to 2015’s first disappointment.
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[tab title="Film Details"]
MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and brief nudity.
Runtime: 120 mins
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writer: Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
Cast: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman
Genre: Action | Sci-fi
Tagline: Humanity's last hope isn't human.
Memorable Movie Quote: "The problem with artificial intelligence is it's way too unpredictable."
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Official Site: https://www.facebook.com/ChappieMovie
Release Date: March 6, 2015
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: No detaisl available.
Synopsis: After being kidnapped by two criminals during birth, Chappie becomes the adopted son in a strange and dysfunctional family. Chappie is preternaturally gifted, one of a kind, a prodigy. He also happens to be a robot.
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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]
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[tab title="Trailer"]
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