Artificial intelligence thinks with its heart
With his sci-fi actioner, Neill Blomkamp turns Sharlto Copley into a robot that shows us what it means to be human.
NEILL Blomkamp’s Chappie is a movie of big concepts, set in Joburg. And, before you think this is District 9 Lite, no, Chappie is its own movie. It is Robocop meets Saffa-stylings with a high degree of technical know-how and a rough boere sentimentality.
With its very distinct South African sensibility, not only in the setting, but characterisation and how the story plays out, the movie seems to be confounding American critics. But it should find purchase at the local cinema.
Taking its cue from Blomkamp’s fake advert for mechanised policing – Tetra Vaal – the setting is a slightly futuristic Joburg which is patrolled by implacable robots, newly introduced as an experiment in policing.
Copley is hidden behind the eponymous CGI robot figure, but still manages to imbue Chappie with a sense of innocence and emotional appeal.
Patel is Deon Wilson, an engineer who throws caution to the wind when he experiments with artificial intelligence and produces a learning robot with emotions and self-awareness. As the idealistic creator character, he tries to have a positive influence on Chappie, but very quickly loses control of the situation.
Hijacked by a group of gangsters (played by Die Antwoord and Cantillo), Chappie gets a quick and dirty immersive lesson in what it means to be aware.
The use of Die Antwoord and their music in the film seems to be more of a marketing ploy to attract their American fans than anything else, but thankfully Ninja and, especially, Yolandi Visser are slightly better than the trailer suggests. Still, they do not have the acting chops to quite pull off the parental figures.
The two characters bond with Chappie in very different ways – she mothers him with a sweet pragmatism, bolstering his confidence in being different, while he exploits the robot for his own ends while inadvertently imparting some very harsh life lessons.
Auret pops up as a dreadlocked, tattooed gangster extorting money from Ninja, but he strikes a sour note with that weird I-wanna-be-a-black-gangsta accent.
Weaver doesn’t have much to do as the Tetra Vaal boss other than look worried at the requisite moments.
It is left up to Jackman, as an Australian security expert, to be the big baddie and he doesn’t overplay his hand too much. His Vincent Moore character would not only prefer his own ideas around mechanisation and policing to be used, but is horrified by the idea of a thinking robot. Moore chooses a violent route in a city already peopled by characters who use violence as expression so he becomes almost a caricature of the idea.
What makes sense in a South African context, but jars horribly with Hollywood’s sensibilities, is Chappie’s eventual treatment of the bad guy, so no wonder their critics think the narrative is lacking.
A scene in which Chappie is attacked by some teenage tsotsis is a painful reminder of how xenophobia plays out in this country and there are subtle touches and reminders that build a whole world for us, but simply go over the head of anyone who knows nothing about this country.
Small details in Ninja and Yolandi’s hide-out suggest they may have had a child of their own at some point and everything from what cartoons they watch to how they interact with the robot, create a nostalgic patina that you often find in Jack Parow’s lyrics.
In a place where people mask their humanity (and hence vulnerability) behind violence, it is the robot who displays a strong moral and ethical centre and is more conscientious about the consequences of his actions than anyone else.
The big ideas are that of defining consciousness, what it means to be human and loss. Ultimately, the film is more about how specific characters respond to the idea of a robot which develops a consciousness and what this says about their own humanity, than it is about the robot itself. So too, how we respond to the narrative, says a lot about ourselves.