Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Hugh Jackman, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Brandon Auret, Johnny Selema, Anderson Cooper, Maurice Carpede, Jason Cope, Kevin Otto, Chris Shields, Robert Hobbs, Eugene Khumbanyiwa.
There are many ways to exercise demons, especially when it has been an unfathomable monster such as the political system in South Africa which denied basic rights to the overwhelming majority in a country that has thankfully started to reap the seeds sown by Nelson Mandela. It is how you represent those demons in a modern context that makes a film shine.
With crime running rampant in a very near future Johannesburg, the police turn to the use of a more un-conventional approach in which to tackle the problem. After one too many hits to the body, number 22 catches the biggest piece of misfortune possible for a walking artificial intelligence, that of being consigned to the scrap heap. However, but for the timely intervention of the designer of the new weapons in the war on crime, all might have been for nought and from a moment of reckless abandon and hope to create a new being, Chappie slowly learns what it is to live and to die.
Like District 9 before it, Chappie uses the allegory of a possible future in the form of science fiction to bring forth a discussion on South Africa’s past, however, unlike District 9, Chappie strays further into a realm untouched by also hanging on the thought of religious morality and the thought of divine creation. For every deed shown in Neil Blomkamp’s and Terri Tatchell’s script, the surprise of how well it works is not lost upon the audience and indeed should be applauded for the dark themes visited and the moments of light, almost Short Circuit-esque, humour that filters through as the idea of human-made sentient life, life which will border on the profane and sacrilegious perhaps for some but in which raises many points on how we, as a society, treat those who deserve respect just for being different.
What is interesting about the film is the use of the word Robot as a description for the AI, the thought of slavery, of an unthinking and subservient machine only functioning to serve humanity is perhaps one of the more galling aspects in which terminology can shape a story, rather than just pictures alone and really gives the film a flavour which does delve back into the derogatory. It is not only clever but vital to get through to the many layers of social commentary that to be found in the film.
With Dev Patel, who has thrilled audiences in both The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its tremendous sequel, going up against Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver and the superb Ninja, proving that there is life beyond the rap rave scene in South Africa, Chappie is filled with the best possible potential to make it a sure fire hit, both in Europe as well as in its native South Africa.
The question of what humanity is to do with artificial Intelligence perhaps draws ever nearer, do we treat the possibility with contempt, fear it, or make it subservient to the dominant species on the planet, it is a task that perhaps awaits us all and history might not forgive us a second time.
Chappie is of a very decent film is which to be caught out by surprise with and will surely be at the forefront of a long line of cinematic wonders to come, all of wholesome pedigree.
Ian D. Hall