Columbia Pictures, Media Rights Capital, LStar Capital,
Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Miranda Frigon
Engineer Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) is working for an outfit that makes and sells police and military robots. They’re looking for the next big thing, but Deon is working on making the robots more like humans, with feelings and emotions and the ability to learn. Unfortunately the company isn’t interested in that, and are looking for the next big killer robot. Deon trashes the robot, but decides to keep it himself and take it home to work on it in his spare time. Meanwhile, Chappie (Sharlto Copley) becomes aware, and runs across some two bit drug dealers who are in big trouble for owing a lot of money and see Chappie as a way to pull the big heist they’ve been planning. Chappie is caught in the middle between his maker and these thugs and then the action starts.
I was very anxious to see Chappie. I kind of wanted to see it in the theater, but didn’t make it, but I was delighted when I saw it coming out on DVD. In fact, my wife and I recently spent a week on Catalina Island and took the freshly arrived Chappie DVD with us to watch in the hotel. We got our snacks, turned up the air conditioner and sat down to watch this movie finally. Boy was I disappointed. Now, I certainly expected it to be a rip-off of the “Short Circuit” series. “Number Five is alive.” But I really enjoyed those movies despite Steve Guttenberg. And I was frequently reminded of that throughout, but that didn’t bother me. This was also a blatant rip off of all the “Robocop” films too, which didn’t bother me. But still I was deeply disappointed while watching it. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was very low budget looking. The acting was pretty bad, perhaps Dev Patel excepted and Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver were only here for window dressing. Their parts added nothing of value to the film. Furthermore, the storyline wasn’t very good. If anything it was childish and mostly silly. This concept had so much potential. So what was wrong with it. Well, after coming back from the island and doing some research about the movie, I found it was from the same guys who made “District 9”. Now “District 9” was a sci-fi adventure and loved by a lot of people, but I wasn’t impressed with it for the same reasons. It felt like it wasn’t Hollywood material. In fact, Chappie gave me the same feeling “District 9” did. Chappie was filmed in South Africa. I got the feeling I was watching a student film for a college assignment. It was very JV and not very well done. The cinematography was pretty good and the sets and locations were alright, but the script and the performances were juvenile. But the worst part of all was the patched together ending. It was simply awful. This ending turned the whole scientific feel of the film, which wasn’t that bad, and turned it into an extremely childish fairytale ending. I felt really cheated by the ending. It was simply horrible. All in all, I expected a great experience and for me it was a dud. I wish I had left this one alone. I tend to do my research on a film after I’ve seen it, so as not to go in with a lot of preconceived ideas, but in this case, if I had known how disappointing it was, I would probably have skipped it. Well, maybe not, but I would suggest a Short Circuit/Robocop double feature and leave this one alone!
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