Review of Chappie (2015) by James D — 19 Aug 2015

Neill Blomkamp, the helmer of a new age of science fiction films ("District 9," "Elysium") offers up his latest dose of new age science fiction and the odd characters he creates. "Chappie" takes you into the future where Robot cops are doing most of the work to reduce police officer fatalities. Everything is working smoothly until the deigned and programmer of them, gets too greedy and steals a rejected robot to test his newly made A.I. system in it, things go quite awry.

I don't give much away in my reviews, but I can say Deon the maker of the robots (Dev Patel) gets himself into some trouble once he steals the robot by a group of thugs who are wanting to use and teach the robot to help them steal money so they can pay back a mobster who they owe it to. Throw in a very jealous ex soldier now programmer (Hugh Jackman), and a on her high horse owner of the company (Sigourney Weaver), and you've got major issues. The plot works, it's not fantastic, elaborate, or twisty, but it seems to work for this story. I wish they would've explained a bit more on Hugh's character, and how he became so damn salty and jealous, but it worked. Also, I felt like as with most of Neill's endings, it almost fell short of what was expected. I could've used more explanation on certain aspects of the film, like what happened to Hugh's character, Sigourney's character, and what will become of the robots? Eh, maybe it's not important in that time frame, and maybe it is.

The acting, pretty darn good I'd say. Weaver is always great no matter what role she's in. Jackman, it was odd seeing him in the villain type role, but, I must say is that he sunk his teeth into that one pretty well. My favorite goes to Patel though, who proved his worth in "Slumdog Millionaire" and doesn't hold back here. He's lovable, brave, innocent, and cunning all at the same time, and you just generally like the kid. There's not much to say about Sharlto Copley, who voices "Chappie," he did well, but it's hard to judge a voiced character over a live action character, I definitely liked him though.

This movie is odd, it's intense at times, sometimes confusing, and all around something you haven't really seen before. It's like a mix of "Short Circuit" and "E.T." Weird, trust me, it is. But that's why people like Neill's work, it's a new age science fiction, it's out there, it's over the line at times, but it works. I just wish more things would've been explained at the end, and I wish I would've been a bit more interested, but he'll, I still liked it. 3/5 JD.