By LINDSEY SCHIBELHUT, Staff Reporter.
Robots, criminals and artificial intelligence, oh my! Directed by Neill Blomkamp (“Elysium,” “District 9”) and released in 2015 “Chappie” tells the story of tech genius Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) who works for company giant Tetra Vaal. Tetra Vaal is responsible for supplying the Johannesburg, South African government with police robots called “Scouts,” used for fighting rampant crime. Wilson is determined to create a robot that utilizes sentient artificial intelligence (A.I.) and can feel.
After a failed attempt at getting his boss Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver) to let him test his latest A.I. program on one of the Scouts that was destroyed in a police shootout, he decides to take matters into his own hands and test it out anyway. However, in the midst of stealing the robot he needs from headquarters, he is carjacked and kidnapped by criminals Ninja (Ninja), and Yolandi (Yolandi Visser). The two criminals want the robot powered up so it can assist them in a heist, so Wilson installs the software. The robot acts like it’s in the early stages of childhood upon awakening, so they have to teach the robot and help it to learn.
This is probably where the movie “Chappie” goes downhill. A great majority of the movie is spent viewing the yapping and yelling between the criminals and robot, trying to get it to learn quickly so it will know what to do during the heist. This is not what I signed up for when I went to see this movie, I expected there to be a lot more action.
The wacky looking criminals in the film, are actually real people. Yolandi and Ninja are a South African rap duo called “Die Antwoord.” Blomkamp not only cast them, but used their music as the backdrop to the film. Also, if their 2012 song “I Fink U Freeky” is any indicator, the director took the movie title from the song too. So if you go look at some of their music videos, and then go see the film, or vise versa you will see that the film is basically a giant “Die Antwoord” music video. Personally I think their music is terrible, so I don’t recommend viewing or hearing any of it (unless satanic, baphomet filled imagery or stupid profanity laced lyrics, with a dash of “Alvin and the Chipmunks” helium voices are your thing). They even start spray painting Ninja’s real tattoos all over Chappie during the movie.
The latter half of the film picks up with the plot involving Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman). He is a former soldier who is also inventing a police robot called “MOOSE” which is larger than the scouts. Moore is having a hard time getting funding for his project and any police department to buy the “MOOSE” because it is overkill. He is mad at Wilson because he wants his machine to have the time to shine, instead of the Scouts. So when he finds out about Chappie and his criminal cohorts he is determined to wipe them off the map.
The cinematography in “Chappie” was made to highlight grit and crime, because let’s face it that’s the way “Die Antwoord” try to market themselves. Which is why the music fits as the backdrop sound. The squabbling between robot and criminals got old after a while, which led to the middle of the film being boring. So if you go to this movie for the beginning and the end you are in business. The plot lacked originality as well, because there were strong elements of the 2014 film “Transcendence” in the mix. For example the idea that consciousness can be uploaded to a server, or in this case the robots.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t have wasted the time to go view this movie if I knew it was going to be an advertisement for “Die Antwoord.” So is “Chappie” worthwhile? I think you can wait to see this movie when it comes to DVD; there wasn’t enough action to make it worth the trip to see it on the big screen.
