Neill Blomkamp is one of cinema’s most thought-provoking directors. “District 9” questioned our views on humanity and “Elysium” revolves around equality of social classes. Now he’s back to explore the aspect of humanity with “Chappie.” And if that was his goal, he slightly succeeded.

“Chappie” takes place in Johannesburg, where the police force is now controlled by droids called “scouts”. One of the police droids (Sharlto Copley) is stolen, given new programming and becomes the first android to be given sentience and free will. Now with this new A.I., people begin to see Chappie as a threat to society and order as want to make sure that Chappie is the last of his kind. The film also stars “X-Men” poster man Hugh Jackman, “Alien” star Sigourney Weaver, and “Slumdog Millionaire” star Dev Patel.

The positives in the movie are the actors. All of the actors did fantastic in their roles, especially Sharlto Copley as the robot Chappie. Copley does a fantastic job at capturing the innocence of a child and to see him grow feels fulfilling, as if you were the father of Chappie. The movie excels at giving parents that same feeling when they see their own child do well; that feeling of happiness and pride. Even for those who aren’t parents, you feel some sort of pride for Chappie as he grows during the duration of the film. Also, the visuals are great.  The motion capture was great, once again giving an element of realism for a movie that takes place next year. Most of the CG was used effectively, mostly for Chappie himself. Once again, the mo-cap was above phenomenal. Chappie’s movements and actions were almost life-like, and the motion capture almost felt like this can and will happen in the course of a year.

Unfortunately for “Chappie”, the movie starts to fall flat during the second and third acts of the movie. It’s almost as if Blomkamp wanted things to happen to Chappie so that people feel sorry for him. Unfortunately, it all felt shoe-horned and completely forced in for the sake of having it. Also, while Weaver, Jackman and Patel played their roles extremely well, others did not fair so much. Most notably are the rap-group Die Antwoord, which includes rappers Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser. While both rappers are fans of Blomkamp’s work, their acting talent is not up to par with the rest of the cast. As a matter of fact, neither of them do well enough to envoke any emotional attachment.  Also, the action scenes, while some of them are exceptional; most of them felt like they were trying to make a statement about humanity but fail miserably at that. A movie about a robot that has the ability of free-will should have some emotionally investing action scenes. The biggest bummer was that the ending was so quick and pretty terrible. It completely brought the movie down a few more pegs because of not only how fast it wrapped, but also the fact that it doesn’t make any sense. 

Overall, as a fan of Neill Blomkamp and a huge fan of “District 9”, I came out of “Chappie” disappointed. While some of the actors did well and Chappie himself was amazing, the rest of the story felt weak and choppy. The premise was initially exciting, but the movie tries too hard to be a movie about humanity. And by doing that, it depletes the currency of the quality. What Blomkamp delivered in “District 9” is completely lost here.