CHAPPiE (*½)

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp

Starring: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Ninja, Yolandi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Hugh Jackman, Brandon Auret

Seen: March 14^th 2015

*½ Out of ****

CHAPPiE, marketed as from the director of District 9, has elements of what made District 9 so inventive and surprising, but it couldn’t be much further from it in quality. Where District 9 was scathing social commentary dressed up as an extremely well-produced science fiction movie, CHAPPiE is a decently produced science fiction movie parading as having a deeper message around the idea of artificial intelligence and sentience of a created being next to its creator, and it falls desperately short as extremely annoying characters, individually each enough to make the movie a tough watch, come together in a terrible synergy. The two main members of the very controversial South African rap act Die Antwoord (Afrikaans for The Answer), Ninja and Yolandi Visser, portray themselves as gangsters in this movie, and it may just be that their excessive brand of awful is matched by Brandon Auret as Hippo, one of the villains in this highly offensive movie.

CHAPPiE transpires in Johannesburg, South Africa, as a violent crime wave scourges the city. The police force have purchased a squadron of armoured robots who, through basic A.I., assist in the crime fighting efforts. The designer of these robots, Deon Wilson (Patel), dreams of moving towards true A.I. and nurtures the pet project at home, as his boss, Michelle Bradley (Weaver), is not interested in the moral implications of a sentient robot police force.

Ninja and Yolandi are two gangsters far too deep into a life of crime who pick up trouble with a local crime boss, Hippo. Hippo exploits their fear of him and threatens them with violent death unless they pay him an exorbitant sum of money, which makes them come up with an absolutely hare-brained scheme. They plan to kidnap Deon Wilson, so he can program a police robot to fight for them. When they do kidnap him, Deon has a damaged robot in his car that he stole from his employer, Tetravaal, to test out his A.I. at home. Now they suddenly have not only the designer, but also the robot they plan to use for their nefarious acts.

Deon activates the robot, and Yolandi baptises him CHAPPiE (Copley) after he awakes with a fright, seemingly with the timid nature of a scared animal. Deon doesn’t want Ninja and Yolandi using CHAPPiE, but they soon take on parental roles in CHAPPiE’s existence. Deon is forced out by the overpowering Ninja and now CHAPPiE must come to grips with the world, his position in it, and his morality in response to it. This while all kinds of forces, including Hugh Jackman as Vincent Moore, an extremely jealous co-worker, conspire to destroy CHAPPiE and Deon.

Copley does good work as a motion-capture actor, and CHAPPiE really seems fully alive. Ninja and Brandon Auret are excessive past any point of annoyance, and their overly insane portrayals of two bad gangsters leaves the viewer with a bad taste in the mouth. Yolandi comes across as more of a nurturing mother, and she fulfils her purpose in CHAPPiE. Dev Patel as a normal human being almost disappears in CHAPPiE, as everything else is simply dialled up way past 11.

CHAPPiE is pervasively crass, with bad language in abundance. The problem is that this bad language is not just s--- and f---, but the Afrikaans word p---, (equivalent to the English c---). The word is also not just used once or twice, but continually, and is also painted on various walls in Ninja and Yolandi’s gangster hide-out. This and the glorification of such a gangster lifestyle drags the movie down to depths it shouldn’t be retrieved from, and I would recommend that anyone with a conscience and a decent moral construct stay away from CHAPPiE.