There are few visionaries in science-fiction cinema, but one of them is Neill Blomkamp, the South African writer-director behind District 9, Elysium and now Chappie (and soon, the next installment of Alien, which plans to dispense with Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, taking up the story after Aliens). Like him or hate him, Neill Blomkamp is changing the genre with every movie he makes.
Two elements dominate his science-fiction sensibilities. First, science is messy. That entails technological innovation, biology and evolution, aliens, and human interaction. His movies are messy, bloody, gritty, visceral and even grotesque. Science isn’t clean and clear; it is a stumbling process toward something as yet unimaginable that will forever change humanity. Second, class differences are always present, but they can and will be destroyed by the progress of science. His South African background is present in all of his films, usually in the foreground where oppressed people (and aliens) are controlled by robotic police technology and political tyranny that will inevitably backfire.
Chappie continues this tradition, positing that the South African authorities begin to use robot “guards” who enforce laws under human control. As an experiment, one broken robot is given sentience, and it, Chappie, learns like a baby, although at an exponentially advanced rate. But Chappie is indoctrinated into the ways of crime as well as justice, and has to determine for itself what to do. The beauty of the script is that the people it knows — his “maker” (Dev Patel) and the criminals who want to exploit it (Ninja, Yolandi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo) — are all maddeningly human to the logical robot, making mistakes and poor decisions way too often. But perhaps Chappie can help them . . .
It’s sometimes a maddening movie, heavy-handed and obvious, overly operatic at its violent conclusion, illogical when one man (Hugh Jackman) essentially shuts down the entire robotic police force out of jealousy and personal vanity. Yet at the same time, Chappie is street smart, fast-paced, remarkably deep and undoubtedly visionary. Its unorthodox criminal protagonists are beautifully realized, with a dignity I truly did not expect. But Blomkamp’s view of humanity is that everyone matters, and that often our greatest achievements originate in completely unexpected places.
Chappie is an uneven mixture of action film, crime thriller, robot comedy and exposé of brutal police methods that perhaps resonates more deeply because of our recent problems in our own country. But it is also more than the sum of its parts, which is why I will be seeing it again, trying to take in as much of its entertaining wisdom as I can. Is a sentient robot the next evolutionary step forward, or a gigantic metal mistake that will doom the human race? I don’t know, but Chappie gives us one possible scenario, and it’s fascinating to watch. ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2. 12 March 2015.