By Brent Hannon
The setting is Johannesburg, South Africa, which is overrun with crime. Tetravaal (named after Blomkamp’s short film, Tretra Vaal, from which this movie was based) is an American weapons company that creates robots to help combat this increase in crime activity. Chappie opens up with a helicopter full of robots what appears to be a crew of common criminals. The criminals manage to evade long enough to make their rendevous with a group of gangsters. The gangsters claim that they are owed twenty million dollars, and to prove their sincerity, they shoot and kill one of the criminals. It’s at this point that the helicopter arrives along with a number of human police officers and more robots on the ground. Interestingly enough the human officers use the robots as moving (and shooting) shields to advance on their suspects. During all of this, one of the robots (robot 22, soon to become Chappie) gets heavily damaged. Back at Tetravaal, Robot 22 is sent off to be scrapped.
There are three main players at Tetravaal, Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver) is the head of the robotics division, Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman) is a soldier who became an engineer, and Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) the engineer behind the current robot police force. In his spare time Deon coded an AI program that has consciousness. Deon ends up using robot 22 to upload his program; this program will turn the robot into a fully aware AI. It will be able to learn and grow from experience not unlike a child but at a much faster rate. The two main criminals that end up involved with Deon and Chappie are Ninja (himself) and Yolandi (herself). Ninja and Yolandi are, in real life, members of the South African rap group Die Antwoord. Their characters steal Chappie (Sharlto Copley) in an attempt to turn him into a criminal and also to help protect them from the gangsters that are still after them. Yolandi becomes a mother figure to Chappie and constantly has to keep Ninja calm during the robots learning process.
There are many parallels between Chappie and Short Circuit. Both movies deal with robots that become aware of themselves as well as an intense want for continued life. Johnny Five and Chappie both have a comical behavior and also an innocence that gets taken advantage of by bad people. The difference is that Chappie is a much more serious film than Short Circuit. The childish nature of Chappie is surrounded by very real danger and struggles. Sharlto Copely not only voiced Chappie but also did mocap for the character. I was impressed by his performance; Sharlto instilled a childlike quality into Chappie that was pushed to a slight comical side, but not unbelievable for a robot that just gained conciousness. He had an over eagerness to please, a lack of comprehension of danger, and was quick to trust. Compared to Blomkamp’s other films, this one is not as strong overall, but it was still entertaining and it would not be mistaken for anyone else’s work. That comparison may be biased by the fact that his other films exist on a much larger scale whereas this film deals with a much narrower focus. I am glad that I watched it and I look forward to the next film from Blomkamp.
Rating: 6.5/10
