Chappie (March 2015)

Official Australian release date: 12/3/15. Viewed: 14/3/15.

Director: Neill Blomkamp

Actors: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Yo-Landi Visser

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi

Rating: MA

‘Chappie’ is Blomkamp’s third film, after ‘District 9’ and ‘Elysium’ and easily sits between them in terms of quality. It’s a near-future tale of artificial intelligence and how this could play out on a small and large scale. It’s nothing new (‘Terminator’, ‘Short Circuit’), but it is done in an interesting way. Deon (Patel) develops “scouts” (basically literal robocops), which Vincent (Jackman) wants to supersede with his mech-warriors. When Deon creates an AI “conscious”, Chappie is “born”.

Unfortunately for Chappie, his “parents” are Ninja & Yo-Landi from ‘Die Antwoord’, a South African rap-rave “band” (thanks Wikipedia. If you haven’t heard them before, don’t bother!) I can only assume Blomkamp loves their music (god knows how) and asked them to be in this as a favour. Their faux-gangster act forces Chappie into doing things he doesn’t want to and disaster ensues. Jackman is adequately douchey as the Aussie-redneck, Sigourney Weaver is massively underutilised, Patel is solid and Copley is great as the South African-accented voice of Chappie, providing most of the laughs due to his interpretation of sayings.

The visual effects – particularly of Chappie and the other scouts - is superb. There’s not too much philosophising on the impacts AI could have on humans/the world. The ending was a little drawn-out and obvious – not necessarily good or bad.

Overall: Good robot coming-of-age story.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.