Neil Blomkamp is a name that went from overnight sensation to a fading one-trick pony. "District 9" put him on the map for his filmmaking and creativity of the sci-fi genre, getting both critical and financial success. "Elysium" was considered a disappointing follow-up due to a middling story and somewhat generic premise. Nevertheless, it still managed to be a modest hit at the box office. His third and most recent film to date, "Chappie", was the biggest dent in his career, not only getting a lot of negative reviews, but even flopped at the box office, causing Blomkamp's reputation to be scarred by the eyes of the film industry. But, is the film really that bad or was it unfairly judged during its release? Well, let's talk about the story first. In the crime-ridden streets of Johannesburg, South Africa, the government partners up with weapons manufacturer, Tetravaal, to create the world's first robotic police force with the use of the scouts. Deon Wilson, the scientist behind the scouts, manages to create a conscious AI and tests it on a damaged scout droid that is soon to die from a depleting battery. Deon however gets kidnapped by a group of local gangsters who demand to use the robot in order to pull off a heist to pay off a bigger, badder gangster. Having no choice, Deon has to let his creation go while the gangsters name the robot Chappie and trying to make him a gangster himself, despite Deon and the female member, Yolandi, concerns. On top of all of this, Vincent Moore, a rival of Deon, learns about the AI and decides to take advantage of the situation in order to shut down all of the scouts and allow his creation known as MOOSE to take centre stage. If you can't tell, there's so much happening in the story that, while managing to all fit in the two hour mark, makes the pacing feel all over the place. The main aspect of the film is Chappie being raised by the gangsters as well as Deon, which are butting heads over on how he must be used. However, the film goes into how Chappie fears his impending death and wants to find a way to transfer his consciousness to another body. Vincent's antagonistic role is only pivotal by the third act and the underlaying theme of whether robots should have consciousness or be operated by humans is never really put into the forefront. While I like these story elements, it's clear that there's just too much of them. If maybe the character of Vincent or the subplot of Chappie trying to transfer his consciousness was removed, the story would've been more palatable and easier to follow. The tone is both gritty and tends to lean on the realism of the situation, while also throwing in some light-hearted comedy as the gangsters try to train Chappie into one of their own despite the latter's child-like mind and promises to not kill or do crimes, causing the gangsters to find loopholes in order to work around the AI. It's all really good, but the ending really takes a different approach to the gritty tone as it becomes much too happy for the main characters as Chappie manages to save all of his loved ones by placing their consciousness into robots. It feels very fairy-tale like and brings eerie vibes of the ending of "A.I", another sci-fi film about robots where the tone doesn't fit the happy ending that comes seemingly out of nowhere.
The titular character, Chappie, definitely shines as one of the most engaging characters in the film. Voiced by Sharlto Copley, Chappie is a child-like AI who is quickly learning about the world, yet not being capable of learning when people are lying or not. It does get some people to feel polarized of the character as there are instances where he's very smart or very gullible, but they forget that the character himself was only experiencing life for a few days. He's very much an innocent child being cared by multiple parental figures from loving, caring ones to harsh, abusive ones. The character really works the most when he is bonding with Deon and Yolandi as they are the ones who teach him important life lessons. Deon, played by Dev Patel, is a pretty standard archetype of the scientist without a backbone and gets pushed around by others, but his character does work best when he is with Chappie as he attempts to lead him to a better life and understanding of his predicament. South African rapper Ninja plays an exaggerated version of himself as a gangster who harshly raises Chappie to be a gangster that can help him in his upcoming heist. Ninja is by far the worst character in the film. While his acting isn't awful, the character he plays is so despicable and demeaning that the audience wants him to be disposed of. Not only that, but the film tries to make you feel sorry for the character by showing that he's forced to take the heist to live and he attempts to sacrifice himself only for Yolandi to be killed instead of him. How exactly can you feel bad for the man who abused Chappie by leaving him to potentially die by local street kids and lie to him about getting him a new body and jacking people's rides? Yolandi on the other hand, played by the other same-named rapper, is a much better character. Although she tends to feel like some Harley Quinn rip-off appearance and personality-wise, Yolandi works as the comforting mother figure who seems almost child-minded as Chappie. Hugh Jackman plays Vincent as a no holds-barred Australian douchebag who believes that his creation is superior to Deon's scouts. Although I love Jackman and his performance is fun to watch, his character is not only kind of unnecessary, but his creation, MOOSE, is extremely flawed design-wise and defense-wise, as a couple of bombs and explosives can manage to reduce it to shreds. If MOOSE was like a type of Iron Man suit, I would understand his frustration to not have it be used, but it clearly makes sense why a big, chunky battle mech isn't what the police force needs. There are also a few side characters such as Jose Pablo Cantillo's Amerika, a gang member who flip-flops on how to take care of Chappie depending if Yolandi or Ninja are with him, Sigourney Weaver's Michelle Bradley, the generic CEO of Tetravaal who cares about figures and PR more than rational decisions, and Brandon Auret's Hippo, a rival gangster to Ninja who demands the latter to pay twenty million dollars and just likes to kill people. The side characters are pretty generic, but they are acted well at the very least. Honestly, aside from Ninja's presence and Jackman's role being a bit forced into the narrative, the main characters of Chappie, Yolandi and Deon are pretty good and would have stand out more if the film took more of a small-scale drama rather than a grand sci-fi action thriller.
Even with a messy screenplay, Blomkamp manages to, at the very least, show off that he can do a great job on the director's chair. Instead of the polished, cinematic flair like his previous film, he goes back to his roots of "District 9" by not only setting the film back in Johannesburg, but also having a slight documentary/found footage feel to it. This is mainly by the world Blomkamp presents, which is dirty, unfiltered, and even has the air reek of tension from criminal gangs. It helps that the film itself takes itself seriously for the most part and shows a type of realism to the film as a result. Although the film doesn't actually use the methods of a found-footage film, the cinematography by Trent Opaloch utilizes a lot of handheld camera as well as some nice cinematic panning and angle shots. At times, the cinematography makes it look like some fan film you'd find on Youtube, but I say that it was intended to look somewhat low budget and unfiltered. The score by Hans Zimmer is actually pretty good, having some action and dramatic beats with the sci-fi beats. Not one of his most memorable soundtracks, but a solid one compared to most of his work. The visual effects look great for the modest budget. I love the fluent movement of Chappie and the amount of detail they give to him and the character design that makes it seem realistic for that specific robot. The design of the MOOSE though is very much like ED-209 from "RoboCop", which makes the mech look like a lazy rip-off. Lastly, there's the action to comment about, which is honestly pretty good. It's not as gory or over-the-top as in "District 9", but there are some cool highlights. The opening action scene where we see how the police force has become dependant on the scouts, the rampage caused by the MOOSE, and Chappie confronting and beating Vincent to a pulp are just great, especially the latter two scenes as it gets very brutal and somewhat satisfying to watch. Although I personally feel that the film should have been more of a small-scale drama centring around Chappie, the action at the very least keeps you engaged and entertained. Blomkamp still manages to be a great director and it's a shame that he hasn't go much work out lately due to the failure of this film.
"Chappie" is a film where I acknowledge the various issues that can make it seem as a bad movie, but I feel that a lot of people are harsh with their judgement. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of issues. From the overstuffed narrative and middling pace, an ending that feels out of tone from the rest of the film, Ninja is a terrible character that the audience is supposed to care for, Vincent shouldn't be in the film story-wise despite Jackman's fun performance, the side characters are generic, and the film does indeed feel like it copies from other sci-fi films from the structure of certain sub-plots and the designs for MOOSE and to an extent, Chappie. However, despite these issues, there's still a lot of good things in this film. There are some nice story moments regardless of the overstuffed narrative, the serious tone works for the majority of the film along with some good little humour, Chappie is a very likeable character that's both innocent and conflicted on his parental figures, Deon and Yolandi are endearing as the positive role models in Chappie's life, the acting in general is very good all around, Opaloch's cinematography has both a low-budget and cinematic flair that helps make this gritty world realistic to an extent, Zimmer's score is pretty good for the respective genre, the visual effects are great for the budget and how it captures the movements of Chappie so fluently despite the lack of motion-capture, the action sequences are fun to watch and have some stand-out moments, and Blomkamp's directing does try to recreate the magic he had achieved in "District 9" with a level of effectiveness. It's not a perfect film, but I actually prefer this film to not only "Elysium", but even "District 9" to an extent. The stuff that's good in it is really good and I believe too many people slept on it during its release. Give it a watch yourself and come to a conclusion of your own whether or not it's truly Blomkamp's worst film or that there's a lot more to it under the surface, much like the character of Chappie himself.
Verdict: 6.5/10. An above average romp that will keep you engaged, regardless of its shortcomings. Next week, I'm planning to review both "Tenet" and "New Mutants" back-to-back. Stay tuned!
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