Chappie (2015)
Every child comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come under the influence of his surroundings—some good, some bad—and he will rely on his heart and soul to find his way in the world and become his own man. But there's one thing that makes Chappie different from any one else: he is a robot.
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Pretty Good
Excellent but underrated film
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
The screenplay is really interesting, but there are no serious strains, and they continue to act like robotic babies until the end of Filmin and the filmin temposu is very low
I saw this in the cinema and loved it. I recently purchased the DVD to watch again and it made me realise what a sappy person I've become in those 3 years. I had way too much pathos for the childlike kill bot, Chappie. Chappie (the film) highlights just how corrupt, self serving and downright cruel humans can be. The titanium bubba really wasn't shown much love throughout the film. So why watch it? Because Chappie is such an endearing, likeable character and his character arc is fascinating to watch; you get to see Hugh Jackman play a mullet wearing bully-boy who bandies about Australian idioms (which, as an Australian, we really don't say) with aplomb; robots- killer robots everywhere!I feel like if you've seen any of Neill Blomkamp's films you know what to expect. High tech, abused innocents and psychotic villains. It's just with Chappie, some of the psychotic villains show more compassion than those on the side of "good". I know why this film divides viewers. The acting isn't slick (but for me it adds to the realism) and the story isn't the most cohesive or believable- but hey- it's escapist sci-fi- not a bio-pic!Watch Chappie. It's a dystopian Aesop fable with heart. That we should all be as honest and decent as that flicky-eared assassin.
Neill Blomkamp created a masterpiece; a film that perfectly balanced visually stunning effects with a compelling plot and characters, and that film was District 9. Then came the shallow mess that was Elysium that while lacking a likeable protragonist still managed to be a treat to the eyes at the very least.Then came Chappie. I really wanted to like Chappie, a lot. Some of the best ideas are the simplest, and in spite of the negative reception I could see much potential in a twisted comedy action film about a good-willed robot being trained by scumbags. This isn't the case with this film. Many of the elements I had expected were in play, however the tone was relentlessly sinister and dour where a more levitous approach would have been vastly more interesting. The film feels too mean-spirited to be enjoyable.The gangsters Chappie finds himself involved with are beyond trashy in the worst kind of way, and upon realization that they would be a large portion of the next 2 hours of my life, I was filled with dread. Chappie isn't flawless himself - his benevolence going against any notion I have of "realistic" robots. Chappie is quite simply a human character placed in the husk of a robot, and once I got past that I soon found myself annoyed with the repetitive scenes of Chappie in peril and confusion, always responding with squawking and sulking, giving me that feeling I have when I'm being beaten over the head with a message, only it seems the message is missing.Hugh Jackman plays a one-dimensional baddie not unlike what you'd get in a Saturday morning cartoon. His only motivation is that his weapons were shafted in favor of the crime-fighting robots, so then he turns to terrorism I guess. I guess this is where that missing message is; mean people are bad, and you should just be a good person, and robots are people too.Everything in this film is simply surface level, when the only way it could have had a chance is by being deep - higher highs, lower lows, and stronger motivations.The worst part is I feel like the film ended right when the story was just getting started. There's a chance for something here, but this trilogy is otherwise dead on arrival.
'Chappie' is Blomkamp's third film, after 'District 9' and 'Elysium' and easily sits between them in terms of quality. It's a near-future tale of artificial intelligence and how this could play out on a small and large scale. It's nothing new ('Terminator', 'Short Circuit'), but it is done in an interesting way. Deon (Patel) develops "scouts" (basically literal robocops), which Vincent (Jackman) wants to supersede with his mech-warriors. When Deon creates an AI "conscious", Chappie is "born".Unfortunately for Chappie, his "parents" are Ninja & Yo-Landi from 'Die Antwoord', a South African rap-rave "band" (thanks Wikipedia. If you haven't heard them before, don't bother!) I can only assume Blomkamp loves their music (god knows how) and asked them to be in this as a favour. Their faux-gangster act forces Chappie into doing things he doesn't want to and disaster ensues. Jackman is adequately douchey as the Aussie-redneck, Sigourney Weaver is massively underutilised, Patel is solid and Copley is great as the South African-accented voice of Chappie, providing most of the laughs due to his interpretation of sayings.The visual effects - particularly of Chappie and the other scouts - is superb. There's not too much philosophising on the impacts AI could have on humans/the world. The ending was a little drawn-out and obvious - not necessarily good or bad.