Chappie (2015)

South African director Neil Blomkamp specializes in a sort of dirty science-fiction. He burst onto the scene with "District 9", which I really enjoyed. His follow-up "Elysium" was a dud by my standards. The beginning of the trailer for "Chappie" reeled me in: a humanoid robot, shunned by mankind, just wants to be accepted - what's not to love? Once I realized that the movie would star the members of Die Antwoord in more than just cameo roles, my expectations fell to zero. I thought I would just skip this movie altogether, but I wanted to give Blomkamp a chance at redemption after "Elysium", so here we are.

In a not-too-distant semi-dystopian South Africa, crime has gotten so bad that the police have turned to robots to replace most human officers. The A.I. of the robots in the 'Scout Program' is very advanced, thanks to an elite programmer working for the Tetravaal company. Deon (Dev Patel) is also working on creating a robot with actual consciousness, an artificial intelligence beyond what anyone has seen. The company denies his request to experiment, so he does his work in secret. His prototype ends up being stolen by three thugs looking to make one big score to pay off a vicious crime lord. Ninja, Yolandi & Amerika influence the robot in thuggish, criminal ways, while Deon tries to raise a more proper, respectful scion.

To bring conflict from another direction, Deon's coworker Vincent Moore has created a different type of robot peacekeeper - a much more militarized, bulky, weaponized machine that is controlled by linking to the mind of a human. Moore aims to sabotage the Scouts in order to showcase his own invention.

Much of this plot is a retread; we've seen robots or aliens try to learn the ways of humans, get taken advantage of, then forgive and save the day. It's predictable, and the only thing that really separates it from others is the distinct style of Blomkamp. The South African landscape, the nearly indecipherable accents (we're provided subtitles for one character who speaks English), and the frenetic camerawork are all signature Blomkamp.

Despite that, what really hurts this movie is the casting. Dev Patel is solid, Jose Pablo Cantillo is good as one of the thugs, and Sharlto Copley brings great life to Chappie with his voicework. Things get ruined with Hugh Jackman and Die Antwoord. Somehow Jackman, a native Australian, ended up playing what felt like an Australian caricature. Polo shirts tucked into above-the-knee khaki shorts, a bizarre combed-forward mullet, and an accent that was one "crikey" short of being a cartoon combined to distract me from anything else that was happening. If you've never seen one of Die Antwoord's music videos, they are completely insane. Not just saying "oh wow that's insane", this stuff is certifiably crazy. There's a car-crash voyeur mentality to watching them, but I can only handle it for about 4 minutes at a time. Listening to Ninja's over-the-top gangsta talk combined with the pixie-from-hell voice of Yolandi just turned me completely off.

The more I look back, the more I feel like this would have been better served as a cartoon. At least then I would have accepted the wacky voices and characters, but when it's presented as a "gritty, realistic sci-fi movie", I just can't get beyond that to enjoy the movie for what it is. It's sad because the special effects and CGI were glorious. The robot design was great, and interacted with the human actors flawlessly. It's unfortunate too, because, in spite of myself, I started to get interested and feel for Chappie as the movie went on, but kept getting my suspension of disbelief shattered.