Post by SnoBorderZero on Mar 8, 2015 19:45:43 GMT -5
Neil Blomkamp burst on the scene with his surprise hit smash "District 9", a science fiction film with a unique style and voice that seemingly came out of nowhere and put the filmmaker on everyone's radar. After following up his debut with "Elysium" which had its issues but was still decent fun, Blomkamp has gone severely backwards with his latest feature, "Chappie". "District 9" and "Elysium" were ambitious visions of an alternate Johannesburg and Los Angeles that utilized their dystopian settings to serve as social commentaries on the city of today. "Chappie" takes place in a slightly dystopian Johannesburg as well, but everything feels very scaled back. The city doesn't bear much intrigue this time around, and the film mostly takes place on the outskirts of town and in big offices and warehouses. It's not very interesting, and Blomkamp doesn't have anything profound to say this time around either. The whole film feels like a project he'd come up with a long time ago and was just making it now without touching it up.
The film is pretty blatant in ripping off the 1987 "RoboCop" from the story to the news footage setting up the plot, and it doesn't do it nearly as well. Chappie is a normal police robot that gets badly damaged in a drug raid, and this sets up a very obvious and cliche-riddled story of his creator, played by Dev Patel, testing out his program that will give personality and "life" to Chappie. Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman plays a fellow engineer who's upset that his model has been passed on while Patel's has been celebrated. Jackman gives perhaps the most embarrassing performance of his career as an absurdly over-the-top adversary that chews the scenery while he glares and snarls and checks off every cliche bad guy bullet point along the way. Chappie meanwhile has been captured by some "gangsters", played by Die Antwoord members Ninja and Yolandi. This leads to some mildly amusing moments of Chappie learning things around him and picking up South African slang, but it all feels so routine and done before.
You can literally write out the story beats well before they occur, and any hope of holding out for Blomkamp to start shaking the film awake and stirring something interesting up never happens. None of the action is interesting, Chappie is actually really annoying after awhile, all of the characters are cardboard that never change or develop, and the real disappointment lies in Blomkamp not bringing anything new to the table. This isn't any different from any film just like this, in fact it's even worse. Whereas "Elysium" and its issues could be chalked up as disappointing, "Chappie" is an alarmingly large step backwards for Blomkamp and is a pretty bad movie. This is a film that really should never have been made, and it'll be interesting to see how Blomkamp responds with the next Alien film. He's gotta go back to the drawing board, because if "Chappie" is a sign of trending for the filmmaker, then Blomkamp is in a bit of trouble. Also, the self-promoting by Die Antwoord gets really old really fast. They get more screen time than anyone in the film except maybe Chappie, which is just another puzzlingly bad decision by Blomkamp. Skip it, you've seen this movie before, and you've seen it done better before.
5/10
The film is pretty blatant in ripping off the 1987 "RoboCop" from the story to the news footage setting up the plot, and it doesn't do it nearly as well. Chappie is a normal police robot that gets badly damaged in a drug raid, and this sets up a very obvious and cliche-riddled story of his creator, played by Dev Patel, testing out his program that will give personality and "life" to Chappie. Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman plays a fellow engineer who's upset that his model has been passed on while Patel's has been celebrated. Jackman gives perhaps the most embarrassing performance of his career as an absurdly over-the-top adversary that chews the scenery while he glares and snarls and checks off every cliche bad guy bullet point along the way. Chappie meanwhile has been captured by some "gangsters", played by Die Antwoord members Ninja and Yolandi. This leads to some mildly amusing moments of Chappie learning things around him and picking up South African slang, but it all feels so routine and done before.
You can literally write out the story beats well before they occur, and any hope of holding out for Blomkamp to start shaking the film awake and stirring something interesting up never happens. None of the action is interesting, Chappie is actually really annoying after awhile, all of the characters are cardboard that never change or develop, and the real disappointment lies in Blomkamp not bringing anything new to the table. This isn't any different from any film just like this, in fact it's even worse. Whereas "Elysium" and its issues could be chalked up as disappointing, "Chappie" is an alarmingly large step backwards for Blomkamp and is a pretty bad movie. This is a film that really should never have been made, and it'll be interesting to see how Blomkamp responds with the next Alien film. He's gotta go back to the drawing board, because if "Chappie" is a sign of trending for the filmmaker, then Blomkamp is in a bit of trouble. Also, the self-promoting by Die Antwoord gets really old really fast. They get more screen time than anyone in the film except maybe Chappie, which is just another puzzlingly bad decision by Blomkamp. Skip it, you've seen this movie before, and you've seen it done better before.
5/10
