Just recently, writer/director Neill Blomkamp admitted being unhappy with the end result of his District 9 follow-up, Elysium. He explained that he got too caught in all the concepts and ideas of the films that the story and characters didn’t work. It’s admirable for Blomkamp to speak openly about Elysium disappointing, especially since most directors never seem to talk about their bad films. But there is a difference between admitting to your mistakes and actually learning from them. Unfortunately, Chappie is another underwhelming entry in Blomkamp’s post-District 9 career. While the film is a bit more enjoyable than Elysium and it knocks its title character out of the park, it still suffers from a meager script with so many undercooked ideas and supporting characters. To make matters worse, the film ends just when the story is about to get interesting.
In the near future, Johannesburg has become a crime-ridden cesspool, which the government responds to by deploying police robots. The creator of these robots, Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), is about to hit a breakthrough by creating the first machine that can think and feel when he is kidnapped by a trio of gangsters named Ninja (Ninja), Yolandi (Yo-Landi Visser), and Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo), who need him to supply them a robot that can help them pull off a heist so they can wipe away their debt. They allow Deon to move forward with his experiment and successfully create the world’s first sentient robot, which they name Chappie (Sharlto Copley). Ninja wants to use Chappie to pull off the heist while Deon and Yolandi want Chappie to forge his own path. Meanwhile, Deon’s rival Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman) wants the company, Tetra Vaal, to back his tactical war machine, The Moose.
Like Elysium before it, Chappie is a film that has a lot on its mind, but has no idea how to present any of its thoughts as a meaningful story. The film touches on the militarization of the police force, but it is given almost no time to explore. There is the idea of nature versus nurture, but it doesn’t work because supporting characters like Deon and the gangsters have very little development. Jackman plays a one-dimensional villain, but it’s clear he’s having fun with the role. Sigourney Weaver is wasted in a role that could have been played by any actor. There is also the relationship between creator (Deon) and creation (Chappie), but the two spend so little time interacting with one another that the relationship never has a chance to grow naturally because most of the time is spent with Ninja trying to teach Chappie how to pull off the heist we don’t care about.
I imagine that Blomkamp will come under more criticism than ever from not just borrowing from other films, but from his own filmography. If you stop and think about it, Wikus from District 9, Max from Elysium, and Chappie all have the exact same character arc. The film obviously borrows from films like Robocop and Short Circuit, but Chappie’s tone is distinct enough to separate it from those films. We often switch from the the clean, cold environment of Terta Vaal, the seedy, rotten crime underworld of Johannesburg, and the colorful, zany style of Ninja and Yolandi’s hideout. While the striking balance isn’t always successful, it never feels like tonal whiplash. This also helps separate it from the gritty and dirty worlds of both District 9 and Elysium.
One of the few areas where the film shines is in its title character. Chappie is a fully-realized character made three-dimensional thanks to stunning performance by Sharlto Copley. Whenever there is an emotional moment it always from Chappie. Watching him learn and interact with his surroundings make up the best scenes in the film. His childlike emotions and sense of wonder makes us care about him. We want to see him survive and become his own person. We feel for him whenever he suffers abuse. He also gets the biggest laughs in the film from saying things like “[frick] mother” or throwing ninja stars at people because he was taught stabbing people makes them go “sleepy weepy.” Also, credit to Hans Zimmer for another fantastic score.
Without giving too much away, the film ends right when the story is about to get interesting. It ends where the second act of the film should have started. All it does is make the story feel like more of a missed opportunity. The character dynamics that could have been exploited and the themes that could have been explored are more intriguing than what was given to us. Instead, the climax consists of the equivalent of a video game boss battle. It ends similar to District 9, whereas that film told a complete story and ended on a note that left the door open for a possible sequel, Chappie’s frustrating ending is the payoff to a story that was never that good to begin with.
The bottom line is Chappie is a film that could have been so much more. What once seemed like a unique film has now resulted in yet another disappointment from Blomkamp that has landed with a resounding thud. Blomkamp has gone from being a filmmaker the entire industry once had their attention to a filmmaker we should be worried about. I’m not ready to write him off as another one-hit wonder like Richard Kelly. Maybe tackling a franchise is just what he needs to reignite that create spark that made District 9 my favorite film of 2009. Just like Chappie, Blomkamp has proven he still has a lot to learn.
Final Grade: 6 out of 10.