Chappie - A reasonable ‘mish-mash’ of other films

Take ‘Short Circuit’ and mix it with ‘Robocop.’ Then season the brew with elements from Terminator and a few other sci-fi offerings and you’re left with ‘Chappie.’ However, just because it isn’t totally original, doesn’t mean it’s that bad.

It’s actually an okay watch.  A city is plagued by crime, so they turn to droids to deal with the criminal.  One becomes sentient.  And we have our movie.  It’s basically a reworking of ‘Short Circuit’ as a robot struggles to understand the human world around him, all the time being considered ‘less’ of a person, simply because most humans can’t believe that any droid could ever be as ‘alive’ as the rest of us.  The ‘Robocop element’ comes in as another branch of the police force is trying to get their own robots out there on the market.  Think a (pretty blatantly copied!) ED-209, but one with slightly more weapons and a jet pack.

Perhaps it totally wouldn’t have worked, had it not been for the decent cast and crew it had behind it.  At the helm is Neill (District 9) Blomkamp.  Therefore expect good special effects and a real ‘gritty’ feel to the film.  Plus you have his long-standing friend and collaborator, Sharlto Copley, as the robot’s voice.  Sigourney Weaver and Hugh Jackman are thrown in there for added weight, but their screen time only adds up to a few minutes out of the whole movie.  For the most part we’re treated to Chappie himself and his ‘adopted’ family.  Now, whereas Johnny 5 (from Short Circuit) was schooled to be nice, Chappie is held (sort of hostage) by a gang of criminals.  Therefore, he’s schooled in crime – albeit in the most innocent way possible!

I found that a little hard to get my head round.  The ‘hero’ of the film was sort of being forced against his will to be bad.  And the humans he was surrounded by were villains, therefore they were hardly the sort of people you would want to root for (or even associate with!).

Yes, there’s some ‘character development’ and the final – pretty explosive – act was pretty spectacular.  Plus there are some moments in there that you probably won’t see coming.

The major trouble is District 9.  Basically, everyone loved it and will rate Chappie against it.  No, Chappie is nowhere near as good as District 9, but it’s not that bad.  Just lower your expectations and you’ll be in for a fun time with a few rough edges.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that