Not so cheeky Chappie

Blomkamp's first foray into the feature film world, District 9, showed a visceral grasp of down'n'dirty action and a political awareness rarely seen in Sci-Fi these days. His second, Elysium, confirmed that he had probably read Battle Angel Alita and had worked out how to blow a major budget on something devastatingly average. His third, unfortunately, has convinced me that he's an ideasman, not a storyteller. Chappie's baffling grasp on how to let an idea play itself out on screen leaves the film feeling slightly bloated, even at just two hours. It's hard to tell what the point of it all is. A comparison to Peter Jackson, his mentor on District 9 and the ill-fated, never to be seen Halo, is hard-to avoid albeit admittedly condensed. Promise in early work, a stumble and then a giant franchise landed on his lap is parallel in both men's careers, it obviously remains to be seen whether Blomkamp's Alien is more Lord of The Rings or The Hobbit however. 

Chappie, played by Sharlto Copley doing an Andy Serkis, for the most part, is endearing enough. He plays the little, lost robot role well though and despite a few jokes falling flat, he has more success than poor Hugh Jackman. His rugby-ball carrying, accent wavering Jock/Ex-Soldier/Super Intelligent Engineer is both the film and the audience's main antagonist. An antagonist who doesn't appear to have any real motive for unleashing chaos into the city and letting people die except for the fact that "he's got a bigger robot". Seriously, not money or anything, it's like he lost on Robot Wars when he was younger so he beefed up and started bullying kids instead.

Ninja and Yo-Londi, of Die Antwoord semi-fame, give exuberant performances that push Chappie into a battle between music video and Blomkamp's film at times with neither truly coming out on top. Yo-Londi has a softness to her that gives hope to a real cross-over for her but Ninja infuriates and both seem to be learning on the fly. Strange cuts to the pair's tees splashed with their logos and names only succeed in destroying tense moments and pull you away from any semblance of gravitas. At times it’s almost as though they shot their own scenes and Blomkamp just shoved them in hoping they worked like a student who's been given the shit group for a project in college. 

Sigourney Weaver doesn't fare better than anyone else than phoning one in as the chief exec of a weapons company (take note: WEAPONS) who has one moment of giving a shit when she randomly estimates that 300-odd people might die after a bit of a hiccup. Maybe she was just annoyed she had a tiny office despite being the CEO of what we're continuously told is a huge weapons company but no-one in it makes any money.

Dev Patel also stars as Dev Patel.

Back to Blomkamp though because despite Die Antword's best efforts this remains intrinsically his movie. His paw-prints are everywhere and some of it is beautifully put together. The attention to detail lavished on Chappie is visually very strong with little touches like his battery level dropping, nicks, wear and tear and moving parts standing out but not taking centre stage, it’s just such a pity he didn't lavish the same attention on things like acting, story-telling, script, sub-titling decisions (very odd) or cutting 20 unnecessary minutes off the damn thing. All in all it’s a distraction for a few hours but when there's so much promise there its incredibly frustrating when so much of it is so shit. With Alien up next I'm terrified but for all the wrong reasons.