Chappie didn’t make it easy for moviegoers, who didn’t know what to expect when walking into the theatre. The film’s marketing in the past few months has been a scattershot approach, to say the least. The trailer that preceded Interstellar pitched it as a charming inspirational film about humanity, like Short Circuit with a hard-science twist. According to the trailer that preceded Jupiter Ascending, it’s a daring R-rated shoot-em-up starring Hugh Jackman and a walking tank. Oh, and it’s also a breakout presentation of Die Antwoord, a duo of rappers from South Africa with no prior acting experience. While you’d logically expect one of those depictions to be a lie, that’s not the case. Chappie is all of the above, a grab bag of wildly variant tones, styles and ideas that range from fascinating to rote.
The most evident issue that plagues Chappie comes from the script. Neill Blomkamp has written all three of his past movies, and it’s already fairly easy to see where his strengths and weaknesses lie. Nobody celebrated District 9 for its memorable characters or striking dialogue, yet those are what Chappie rests upon. Action is mostly used to bookend the film, with the focus given to how the titular robot, Chappie, shifts the lives of those around him. This is the hook of Chappie’s issues with tone. Each character perceives Chappie as something different, which bleeds into how the film chooses to present itself. When Deon (Dev Patel) is a scene’s focus, it’s a science-driven drama about artificial intelligence. For Die Antwoord’s Yolandi and Ninja, it’s a comedy of unexpected parenthood. These two are intercut with engineer Vincent Moore’s (Jackman) action-movie campaign to destroy the notion of artificial intelligence and make a less-than-subtle political message about drone warfare. There’s no consistency in the world of Chappie, other than the ever-present clunky dialogue.
What makes Chappie so ultimately unsatisfying is the fact that it does have genuinely striking elements. The animation on Chappie himself is remarkable; not since Wall-E has a robot been given such striking mannerisms and emotional depth through body language. He’s front and center of every scene and always holds up as a genuine visual accomplishment.
Meanwhile, the film’s score is also a standout. Hans Zimmer is frequently lambasted for only making one sort of score – the dark, ominous and “epic” tones of films like Interstellar, Man of Steel and Inception. Yet here he delivers an upbeat techno score with moments of chiptune brilliance and even a smart integration of Die Antwoord’s musical catalogue. It picks up much of Blomkamp’s slack in building the world and mood of Chappie. The film’s last act also begins to touch on a few fascinating science-fiction concepts, not often enough explored on film. If this were the beginning of a trilogy, it would be easier to forgive Chappie. But as a standalone film, it buries too few good ideas underneath too much mediocrity.
Follow Chris Berg on Twitter @Mushroomer25

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Albuquerque Journal

The most evident issue that plagues Chappie comes from the script. Neil Blomkamp has written all three of his past movies, and it’s already fairly easy to see where his strengths and weaknesses lie. (Poster courtesy of Columbia Pictures)