Neill Blomkamp (director of District 9) returns to South Africa in a world of gang wars, rioting, illegal weapons trading, and dog fights where the government and police force have turned to robotic machines to control the crime levels. But while there is much death in Johannesburg, there is also life.
Deon Wilson, played by Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), is a young engineer who creates a dominant oppressive cyborg police workforce to control the crime levels. But Deon sees so much more potential in his design. While ignoring rejections of his theory from his boss, Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver), Deon proceeds with his plan to add consciousness and human learning to a deactivated robot of the police force and creates Chappie.
Patel does an amazing job at playing Deon. He transitions throughout the film from this young, overachieving engineer to a father of creation before your eyes. I could not imagine anyone else filling this role so perfectly.
Competitor and ex-war veteran, Vincent Moore, played by Hugh Jackman, spies on Deon’s creation and becomes angry.
Jackman portrays Vincent perfectly, making you hate the actor just as much as the role he plays.
Though I wish Blomkamp had shaved off Jackman’s mullet before the film. His haircut bothered me just as much as his character.
Yolandi and Ninja of Die Antwoord play drug dealers and smugglers who help Deon raise Chappie, but all three have different futures in mind for the new robot’s life.
Yolandi’s character adds a beautiful unique innocence to the film. Her childlike ways match perfectly with Chappie’s naivety and create a humorous tone to the dark situations of Johannesburg.
One of Blomkamp’s biggest successes, Chappie is an innocent and yet grim film that explores the essence of human quality and the raw vulgarity of humanity.
Chappie helps us as humans explore the ironic idea of morals, when he learns that for Yolandi and Ninja to survive and thrive in the world, they must stoop to the levels of criminals. No matter your situation in Johannesburg, the dividing line between the rich and the poor seems to be reflected as the innocent and the guilty.
The beautiful quality of Chappie is that the film basically shoves a mirror up to your face and says “Look at your humanity.” But is it human to be flawed? Have we developed so far—or so little—that our own judgments do not fit our formality of right and wrong? When we are all pretty much the same in this world, yet we are constantly fighting to be ourselves. We’ve created a degree of power that someone will always be higher up than us, and that this is a limit to how we live. That change in any form strikes riots and fear, even if it’s for the better.
The most ironic idea of the film? Chappie seems to be the most human character of all.
