It’s easy to fall in love with child-like robot Chappie, but not so easy to cope with arrogant pop artists gone actor and heavy-handed social messages that overshadow the genuinely charming and potentially enlightening development of the title character. Nevertheless, ‘Chappie’ took the #1 spot in box office sales coming in at $13.3 million next to con-artist mental thriller ‘Focus’ starring Will Smith that grossed $10.0 million and took the #2 slot.
Chappie’s development is the central drive of the movie, which is fostered by his creator, Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), who wants nothing more than for his creation to grow into an intelligent peacekeeper, but a trio of thugs take Deon captive and become Chappie’s caretakers, which creates a tension between maker and parents. Chappie (motion captured and voiced by Sharlto Copley) is caught in the middle.
The punk gangster thugs are played by artists from the South African ‘gangsta’ hip-hop band Die Antwoord, who don’t play musicians in the movie but keep their own names, and tackily wear their band’s
merchandise in multiple scenes. The gangster trio that ‘raises’ Chappie is rounded out by Amerika (Jose Pablo Contillo), and the rejected police robot gets a make-over that includes graffiti symbols and numerous gold trinkets as the thugs try to use the revamped robot to help in their criminal quests to pay back drug kingpin Hippo.
Chappie rapidly learns the ways of the world in their hands, but Deon only sees it as them corrupting his creation. Although Chappie listens to his maker’s advice about not killing anyone or committing crimes, the punk trio tricks the young-minded robot into throwing ninja stars at rivals and stealing cars for money and eventually helping them pull of a heist.
Deon works for robotics company Tetravaal, who has successfully sold Deon’s mechanical policemen, the Scouts, to the South African police force. He has a rival robotics genius, Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman), an ex-military man with a distaste for artificial intelligence and overwhelming jealousy for Deon’s Scouts.
Chappie’s greatest challenge is facing the Moose, Vincent’s military-grade killing-machine, which is controlled by a human wearing a neural transmitting helmet and equipped with anti-aircraft missiles multiple machine guns.
Chappie matures to about the stage of teenager before Jackman’s character goes on a killing spree with his Moose robot after hatching a diabolical plan to turn off all the Scout police robots in order to get the go ahead to use the Moose to destroy the rogue robot Chappie. Jackman does deliver a good performance of military mad scientist, but it doesn’t make up for disappointing performances from members of Die Antwoord.
There is also the interesting aspect of using the neural transmitting helmet to download and transfer a human consciousness, which caused way too many logical malfunctions in the end.
When describing the movie to friends I got a lot of “it sounds like…” or “that’s a lot like…” and insert any number of robot-centered sci-fi movies here. ‘Chappie’ is a heart-warming idea wrapped up in a gold-toothed, chain wearing bundle of undeveloped characters and an emotional arc that just falls flat.
Chappie, the character, has potential to take the overplayed idea of a sentient machine developing a consciousness and a soul and rise above cliches, but the malfunctioning plot and bad acting from pop stars just doesn’t take this movie there.
Please join our FREE Newsletter
