Films > Film Reviews

Chappie

02/03/15

This month, we take apart and look inside Chappie. Audiences can’t seem to get enough of robots these days, and our screens are full of them. The rise of CGI has made production easier (which, ironically, has actually meant the death of hundreds of special effects robots), and so we’ve had giant robots fighting monsters, robots in disguise, and even inflatable care-giving robots. This time, it’s a police enforcement robot. That is, until it is stolen and given new programming, which causes him to think and feel for himself. Think Robocop meets Short Circuit, set in South Africa.

In this silicone sea of battery powered blockbusters, some have been fully charged (Ex Machina), some have run a bit flat (Automata) and others just don’t fucking work at all (Transformers 4). So how do you construct a great robot movie? Well, the man in charge of this project is Neill Blomkamp, some of whose previous sci-fi efforts have worked well (District 9) and some not so well (Elysium). This time, however, he’s back with award winning writing partner, Terri Tatchell, with whom he successfully wrote the former, so at least the blueprints are good.

If I were to compare this movie to a robot, it would be a cyborg; a perfect amalgam made with an exoskeleton built from the independent spirit of District 9, but covered with the big budget Hollywood flesh of Elysium. For example, it stars Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver, but also South African muso-nutters Die Antwoord, and Sharlto Copley (District 9) who’s pretty much the De Niro to Blomkamp’s Scorsese. See it and enjoy it, because Chappie is a robot movie that adds up to more than the sum of its parts.

Oh yeah, in last month’s review of Jupiter Ascending, I said that it was made by the Wachowski BROTHERS, when in fact it is the Wachowski SIBLINGS. Sorry for the error, won’t happen again.