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.
