Back in 2013 Neill Blomkamp seemed to be falling prey to his
ego due to the clout he received from District
9 (which I loved), or maybe he was just a one trick pony. The jury is still
out on his actual talent to tell the smart science fiction stories he seems to
think he’s making, but his stock is falling fast, especially after the box
office and critical drubbing Elysium
(which I did not love) received.
Now along comes Chappie,
Blomkamp’s newest science fiction yarn. The trailers were confusing and made it
look like a big budget remake of Short
Circuit that takes place in Johannesburg and is filled with non-stop ultraviolence.
Is this his redemption or yet another failed attempt to spin a topical story to
finicky audiences?
Damaged beyond repair, a South African police drone (motion
captured and voiced by Sharlto Copley) is given an experimental artificial
intelligence program by his creator (Dev Patel). Unfortunately the robot is
taken by a couple of local gangbangers (Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser) to assist in
a multimillion dollar heist just as the program is installed. Renamed
“Chappie”, the robot slowly becomes more and more human, but can a machine actually
become human?
There are a lot of philosophical questions bouncing around
this flick and I’m sorry to say that there are no concrete answers given. Just
when things become interesting the ball is dropped in favor of some of the
goriest action scenes I’ve seen so far this year. Blomkamp seems to revel in
introducing interesting concepts into his films, but never knows where to take
them and how to properly cap them off without using over the top gunplay and
rocket launchers.
I enjoyed most of the film. The character of Chappie is not
only intriguing, but fun, adorable and maddeningly inept at times. I couldn’t
take my eyes off him mainly due to the fantastic performance by Sharlto Copley.
His motion capture is filled with nuance and heart since Chappie has no eyes
and all of his emotions had to be portrayed with body language. It really blew
my mind and is super impressive.
The amped up Johannesburg where the film takes place is
dark, violent and oddly beautiful. It’s almost a character in itself. I just
wish Blomkamp didn’t feel the need to set all his films there. It made sense
for District 9, but here it was
basically so he could cast the main stars of the film – South African rap duo Ninja
and Yo-Landi Visser of Die Antwoord. This was Blomkamp’s fatal mistake.
The acting in this film is pretty atrocious, especially in
the case of Ninja and Yo-Landi who are essentially playing themselves.
Seriously, they play characters named Ninja and Yolandi. The only difference is
that the hyphen is removed from Yo-Landi’s stage name (her shrill, screeching
voice is akin to hearing metal grinding on metal… I shudder just thinking about
it). WTF?! They are so bad in this film that the usually annoying Dev Patel
comes across as someone trained in the Royal Shakespearean Theatre Company. All
they do is scream, curse and act like complete assholes (and from what I read
were a nightmare to work with on set). I couldn’t tell if the dialogue was
ad-libbed or not, but I refuse to believe that anything that spewed from the mouths
of these two “musicians” was written by someone of above average intelligence.
What’s worse is the fact that the script wants the audience to identify and
sympathize with these fucktards, which is a crime in and of itself. I therefore
retract my previous statement about the writers’ intelligence level. Even
fucking Hugh Jackman, who is an AMAZING actor, is absolutely wasted here and
plays, you guessed it, an asshole. The same goes for an absolutely wasted
appearance by Sigourney Weaver. Why is this script filled with nothing but unlikable
characters? Why?!
What does work? Chappie. If he wasn’t such a fully realized
and wonderfully likable character this flick would have been a complete bust.
But even that can’t save the film from its completely ridiculous and silly
ending. Remember when I said that Blomkamp doesn’t know how to properly cap off
his flicks? Well, he goes completely off the rails here. I’m not talking about
the prerequisite action gorefest finale he’s known for. That was rad as hell.
I’m talking about his lamesauce and insanely stupid epilogue. If there was any
goodwill that I had for this flick before this garbage popped up it was
completely gone after witnessing how dumb the story became. I won’t ruin it for
those that haven’t seen it yet, but what the fuck was he thinking?! This is the
final impression you leave with the audience before the lights come up and they
file out of the theater. You want them to be saying stuff like “that was pretty
good” or “I want to see that again”. Not “fuck that” or “I wish I got up to
take that piss so I wouldn’t have had to endure the I.Q. raping I just
received”.
Sure the score by Hans Zimmer is rad. Sure the action scenes
are cool and frenetic. Sure the look of the film is gritty and enthralling. Sure
the return of District 9’s
faux-documentary wraparound storytelling device makes a triumphant comeback. Sure
the FX used to bring Chappie to life is a revelation in technology and motion
capture. Everything else is a misfire of epic proportions. Bad casting, acting,
writing, directing and specific choices are what killed this flick. I just hope
it doesn’t put the kibosh on Neill Blomkamp’s career before he has a chance to
show us what he can really do in the realm of science fiction. I have high
hopes for his already greenlit Alien 5.
I just hope he doesn’t ruin that franchise by casting talentless douchebag
rappers as Ripley’s sidekicks.
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