Chappie

Blaine: I was a little nervous to see how "Chappie" would turn out and I was asking myself "Am I going to like this movie or is it just going to be another failure this semester?" But thankfully I ended up loving it.

Plot (Spoiler Alert)

    Johannesburg has a unit of robotic police force to clean up crime. The robots come from a company called Tetravaal and the robots creator is Deon Wilson. Deon discovers a way to give a machine artificial intelligence and he wants to test it on one of his droids, but he does not have the permission to do it. Deon decides to ignore it and does it anyway. Vincent Moore, one of Tetravaal’s employees is jealous that the police department chooses Deon’s robots over his creation, the Moose.

As Deon is leaving the company and heading home, he gets stopped by a car and gangsters kidnap him and take him back to their place. The gangsters are Ninja, Yo-Landi and Amerika and what they want is a remote to turn the droids off so they can’t get in the way of their heist and they know Deon is the guy to do that. Deon explains that they are fully functional and can not be turned off.

    Deon turns it on and is frightened at first, but Deon, Yolandi and Amerika try to comfort it. Yolandi names him Chappie. Chappie has the mind of a child, but he learns fast. Ninja and Yo-Landi teach him how to be a gangster and a criminal even though Chappie doesn’t understand that what he’s doing is bad. Ninja thinks Chappie is stupid and he feels the only way he’ll learn is to show him the bad side of the outside world, but he is wrong. Vincent discovers Deon has stolen the guard key and has used it on his robot. He retreives the card and almost destroys Chappie, but Chappie escapes. Chappie returns back to Ninja and Yo-Landi damaged. They fix him right back up.

    Yo-Landi loves Chappie like a son and he grows on Ninja as well. Deon makes Chappie promise him that he’ll never use guns and he won’t use them to shoot a person. Deon gets under a lot of stress because his creation is becoming something he never wanted it to be and he blames the gangsters for stealing him away.

    Vincent taps into the computer and has all of Deon’s robots in Johannesburg shut down including Chappie. Deon thinks fast and brings Chappie to the company where he can fix him. Meanwhile chaos is running through the streets and human police forces are being called in. Deon successfully saves Chappie. Chappie is wondering where he is and Deon tells him he is in the factory where he was made.

    Chappie notices a droid that looks like him and a helmet that can read a mind. Chappie then figures he can transfer his mind into another robot body so that way he can be saved. Vincent overhears what Chappie is saying about transferring his mind and discovers that Deon used the key to give his robot a conscious. Deon knows it can’t help him. Chappie doesn’t want to listen. He takes the helmet and runs home.

    Chappie returns to Ninja and Yolandi and starts working on his experiment. The next morning Chappie has finally figured a way to save himself. Ninja shows up and lets Chappie know they’re getting ready for a heist. Everyone at Tetravaal is in shock to see the news report on one it’s droids helping criminals. The thing that made the company successful is now becoming a total wreck.

    Vincent informs Bradley that Deon gave one of his robots artificial intelligence. Bradley approves of MOOSE to destroy the robot. Vincent controls the MOOSE remotely.

    Now that they’ve got the job done, Ninja be honest with Chappie that he lied about getting him a new body and apologizes for it. Chappie is upset and feels all humans have done is lie to him. Deon shows up and warns everyone about the Moose that is coming their way. The gangster known as Hippo shows up not only wanting the money Ninja owes him, but Chappie as well. A shooting happens and then the Moose shows up killing a lot of the gangsters. It almost gets Deon, but then Chappie jumps on the MOOSE and blinds it by sticking a bomb on it’s camera. The MOOSE shoots at Chappie and the trigger falls out of his hand. Hippo shoots Deon at the waist and Ninja kills him by beating him to death with a shovel.

    Deon is badly injured, but Chappie knows how to save him. Chappie, Deon, Ninja and Yo-Landi get in the truck. Chappie has the truck stopped while he gets the helmet, but the MOOSE destroys it. Ninja distracts the MOOSE so the others can escape, but Yo-Landi doesn’t want to leave him. She shoots at the MOOSE and the MOOSE kills her. Chappie sees the trigger and sets it off. The MOOSE blows up.

    Chappie is angry at the man who killed YO-Landi. Deon knows who it is and tells him where he is. Chappie drives Deon to the factory and when Chappie sees Vincent, he recognizes him for when he almost destroyed him. Chappie sets Deon down while he goes after Vincent. Chappie does some serious injury to Vincent. After that Chappie works fast to save Deon. He transfers his mind into the droid that is hanging in the room.

    Deon awakens and is surprised that he is now a robot. Deon figures a way to save Chappie as well. He transfers Chappie’s mind into one of the other droids that was shut down. Deon escapes the building before the police arrive. Outside he finds Chappie and they head back to Ninja. Ninja destories all of Yo-Landi’s personal belongings. He finds a flash drive that says it has Yo-Landi’s conscience. Chappie tested the helmet on Yo-Landi before she died. Chappie hacks into Tetravaal’s manufacturing facility to build a robot replica of Yolandi and downloads her mind into the machine.

Blaine: “Chappie”, to me, is a movie about right and wrong. Chappie kind of reminds me of someone I once knew who remains anonymous. He wasn't a gangster, but his voice sounds almost like Chappie's. I like the character, Chappie, for his expressions in his voice and his body movement. He is also someone who is lovable to the people who have become very close to him. And he is also very strong and can take a bullet. Hugh Jackman's robot reminds me of Ed-209 from "Robocop". My favorite scene in the movie is when Chappie damages Vincent by kicking him through the walls and throwing him against the room because it’s one of the best ways to get revenge.

    I like that everything works out in the end where Chappie saves Deon and Yolandi’s minds by transferring them into machines and Chappie gets to be saved as well. At the end it was about putting a human mind into a machine, which reminds me of the 2014 film, "Transcendence". One of the things that brought this character, Chappie to life was the performance done by South African actor, Sharlto Copley. This is Sharlto's third movie with Director, Neil Blomkamp after "District 9" and "Elysium". Dev Patel plays Deon Wilson who is the creator of Chappie and all the other robots like him. Ninja and Yo-Landi didn’t have to act much in the film because Neil wanted them to just be themselves. To me Hugh Jackman's character doesn't feel like the bad guy nor a hate able character, but someone who's the jealous type and really hates gagsters and Deon. And of course there's Heroine Sigourney Weaver.

    There's an alternate ending showing Chappie replicating his mind into all the robots that were shut down. It's really good and I like it. I accept both endings.

    Neil Blomkamp said the idea of “Chappie” came to him in 2003 when he decided to create a fake commercial for a company that would make autonomous police robots in countries like South Africa. Neil was putting together the script for "Chappie" the same time he was writing "Elysium" and he was listening to Die Antwood music while he was doing that. So more ideas were coming to him from the security droids in "Elysium" and the band Die Antwood. He thought what if a robot was raised by this band. And the idea of the robot having human, emotional, feelings would be humorous.

    Neil's wife Terri Tatchell, who also co-wrote "District 9” with Neil, really wanted to write the script for "Chappie" with Neil because she loved the ideas Neil was telling her about the project. Neil said this was a movie he wanted to make and I never knew how personal it was until I watched that featurette.

    The movie was shot in Johannesburg, South Africa and it's where Neil Blomkamp grew up and it's helped his artistic sensibility. Neil thought is was the perfect place to shoot the project because he said it looked sci-fi. They needed a lot of security for when they shot in Hillbrow, just incase anything went wrong because of the locals. The most dangerous place they said they shot was Ponte because it's a crime den. But it's also Neil's favorite building in all of Johannesburg. Ponte used to be an apartment complex for wealthy citizens and in the early 90's it was taken over by gangsters.

    Police couldn't even go into the area because it was so dangerous. They used a deactivated power station to put Die Antwood in as their home in the film. The steel in that building is usually stolen because people make money off it. Die Antwood would decorate the place with their own style of art. Hippo's lair in the film was the home director Neil Blomkamp grew up in and it looks like it had abandoned for years. They changed it into a gangster hide out with guns, prostitutes, music and money. Shooting those kind of locations for "Chappie" took a lot of risks.

    It was very clear to Neil who would be playing these characters in the movie. Neil wanted Sigourney Weaver to be in the movie because she is so iconic to the Sci-Fi genre. Neil's first choice to play Deon was Dev Patel. Dev was worried because the character was supposed to be somewhere in his 30s and he was in his mid 20s, but Neil had faith in Dev because Dev had what Neill wanted to see in this character and that was a person who is intelligent, but at the same time is very sweet. Neil knew what the villain would be like after he decided to cast Hugh Jackman for the part.

My rating on “Chappie” is five out of five stars.

Music

    I always love how different the music score, Hans Zimmer does sounds different from the last one. For "Chappie" it sounds like the background music in a video game.