Chappie: Too many nuts, not enough bolts

Chappie (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for violence, gore and constant profanity
By Derrick Bang

The best part about Chappie is the title character: not the robot per se, but the marvelous motion-control “performance” given by Sharlto Copley, which was built into a CGI character by the film’s video effects wizards.

Once Chappie falls in with rather evil companions, his "maker" Deon (Dev Patel) tries to
share some important moral imperatives ... such as Thou Shalt Not Kill. But while this
suddenly sentient robot understands the notion of conscience, his "monkey see, monkey do"
tendencies often yield less than ideal results.

We never see Copley on screen, of course, and there’s certainly no way that he could be concealed within this robot’s streamlined mechanical form ... but the actor grants this character a personality, awareness and sense of presence that evoke the similarly brilliant manner in which Andy Serkis brought Gollum to life, in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films.

I only wish that director Neill Blomkamp’s film were the equal of its star.

The South African-born Blomkamp burst on the cinematic scene with 2009’s stunning District 9, a thoughtful sci-fi parable that explored racism, class divides and political skullduggery, while simultaneously building to a rip-roaring climax: a neat trick in all respects.

But Blomkamp has recycled many of the same story elements in subsequent projects, to diminishing returns. Its much bigger budget notwithstanding, 2013’s Elysium played the same narrative card: the violent efforts of an oppressed underclass to rebel against a harsh and long-established social order, with the catalyst being a lone individual who undergoes a spiritual and even physical transformation.

And here we are at Chappie, Blomkamp’s third sci-fi epic, and — as in District 9 — our central character once again is an innocent forced to adapt to horrific circumstances, while unwittingly becoming the face of social upheaval.

This time, though, Blomkamp and co-scripter Terri Tatchell have compounded the sense of déjà vu by borrowing heavily from previous cinema sci-fi. The result too frequently feels like a clumsy blend of Robocop (the 1987 original) and Australian director George Miller’s savage, post-apocalyptic Mad Max series, stitched together like Frankenstein’s monster.

Along with elements that have become Blomkamp clichés after only three films, most particularly the testosterone-enraged, alpha-male villain who comes after our hero with bigger, badder hardware: David James’ Koobus, in District 9; Copley’s Kruger, in Elysium; and now Hugh Jackman’s Vincent Moore, in Chappie. They’re all the same character: unhinged psychopathic thugs. Been there, grimaced at that.

Elysium: District 10?

Elysium (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity, gore and strong bloody violence
By Derrick Bang

Based on the evidence thus far, filmmaker Neill Blomkamp has only one story to tell.

Elysium feels much like his previous film, District 9, writ larger: another saga of oppressed “aliens” seeking a way to rebel against their cruel and privileged overlords. The setting and opposing teams have changed slightly, and Blomkamp clearly has a bigger budget this time at bat, but the key plot points are essentially the same; even the hardware and weaponry look familiar.

His impulsive plans having failed yet again, Max (Matt Damon) finds himself trapped on
a medical table, while the coldly arrogant Delacourt (Jodie Foster) orders some
purloined computer data stripped from his brain ... not at all bothered by the fact that
this process will kill him.

That said, political oppression has been a big-screen sci-fi staple going all the way back to 1927’s Metropolis, and it often produces great drama. So we can forgive Blomkamp the familiarity ... this time. (He would be wise, however, to move in a different direction henceforth.)

The South African-born filmmaker has a solid eye and ear for social strife — no surprise, given his homeland — which contributed, in great part, to the narrative power of District 9. Now embraced by the seductive lure of Hollywood, Blomkamp has turned his disapproving eye on the United States, and its dysfunctional immigration policy; the results aren’t likely to be embraced by red staters.

The year is 2154, and the entire Earth has become an environmental wasteland, ruined by industrial excess, land mismanagement, resource depletion and various other unchecked global horrors we currently practice, with no eye toward future consequences. Every country, in turn, has become part of a planetwide ghetto, the 99 percent left to scrabble and squabble among themselves.

But not entirely. Movement and behavior are monitored by android peacekeepers that employ computer-chip tracking to maintain a veritable police state bereft of basic human decency. And humor: Just as it isn’t smart, in our here and now, to crack wise when stopped by a traffic cop, it is sheer folly to act smug with one of these gun-toting “law officers.”

George Orwell’s influence weighs heavily, and his vision has come to pass: Big Brother really is watching, and doing so from a massive orbiting space station dubbed Elysium, where the very wealthy have fled in order to enjoy a life of pleasure and privilege among lush gardens and sparkling architecture. Automated med-bays can repair, reconstruct or eradicate anything, from broken bones to cancer.

Blomkamp knows his science-fiction, Elysium being a verdant cross between the domed forests of 1972’s Silent Running, and the technological wonders of Larry Niven’s Ringworld novels.

District 9: An enthusiastic 10

District 9 (2009) • View trailer for District 9
Five stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, violence and gobs o' gore
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.21.09
Buy DVD: District 9• Buy Blu-Ray: District 9 [Blu-ray]

This one has it all.

Part scathing social commentary, part eye-popping speculative fiction, part kick-ass action flick, South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp's District 9 is a ferociously engaging film: the sort of impressively original work that shapes popular entertainment for years to come.

Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley, left), assigned to serve "eviction
notices" to the unappealing aliens that have been crammed into a slum for 20
years, naively believes that the "virtue" of his task will be enough to ensure
his safety while within the fenced compound known as District 9.

Blomkamp and cinematographer Trent Opaloch also make excellent use of the "found footage" style of filmmaking that has become so common these days; this drama unfolds as a blend of faux documentary, on-the-street guerrilla footage and — when necessary — "traditional" camerawork that allows us access to scenes that couldn't be obtained any other way.

Point-of-view purists may kick up a fuss, but who cares? Blomkamp and editor Julian Clarke assemble all the pieces brilliantly: You'll be hooked from the very first scenes.

It's important to note that some genuine thought and planning went into this manner of storytelling; it's not just the usual irritating excuse for jiggly camerawork that mars most recent flicks taking this approach. Blomkamp puts us right into this pell-mell saga, and gives it a sense of immediacy that makes District 9 the genius cinematic equivalent of what Orson Welles did so cleverly with radio, back when he frightened the hell out of listeners with his 1938 adaptation of War of the Worlds.

More to the point, this sucker moves.

Blomkamp and co-writer Terri Tatchell waste no time in setting the stage, beginning their tale with a series of on-camera interviews apparently being conducted after the fact: This both establishes the necessary back-story, while suggesting that these events — whatever they were — went very badly.

The time is an unspecified point in our near future, the setting Johannesburg, where for 20 years the city's residents have lived uneasily alongside a rather unusual refugee camp. Two decades earlier, a huge extra-terrestrial "mother ship" came to rest above Johannesburg and then ... did nothing. With the world's eyes on this South African metropolis, local forces finally broke into the vessel and discovered countless malnourished aliens, all apparently too helpless to do anything.