Chappie is a frustratingly scrappy gangsta-robot fairytale

REVIEW: Chappie is a frustratingly scrappy, but admirably ambitious gangsta fairytale from acclaimed director Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium).

Chappie (MA15+)

Director : Neill Blomkamp (District 9)

Starring : Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver.

Rating : *1/2

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If you must see only one South African fusing of RoboCop, hip-hop, mindless action and mindful storytelling this year, you better get your medication changed.

There will only be one movie ever made like Chappie, which definitely makes it collector’s item cinema by anyone’s estimation. For better and - yep, you guessed it - for worse.

Chappie is the work of South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, a uniquely self-styled operator never afraid to divide opinion nor divert attention. Usually by spraying the screen with all of his ideas. Sometimes all at once.

Big names ... Hugh Jackman in a scene from Chappie.

If you’ve seen Blomkamp’s first two films, District 9 and Elysium, you’ll already have a fair grasp of how he keeps the great, the grating and the garbled coming in equal measure.

Based on a formative 2003 short by Blomkamp titled Tetra Vaal, Chappie is set in a dystopian near-future where South Africa has become a fully-fledged police state.

However, there are very few actual cops on the ground in the crime-riddled streets of Johannesburg. The police force is mostly staffed by robots, precisely programmed to find and obliterate lawlessness ASAP.

The film’s main premise arrives early, in the form of a question Blomkamp will later have trouble answering.

What would happen if one of these computerised crime-busters could be controlled by the crooks it is supposed to be clamping down on?

A dystopian-near future ... the world of Chappie. Picture: AP

Meet Chappie. He is a discarded prototype cop-bot configured to feel empathy for all humans he encounters.

With his software a virtual blank slate of innocence, Chappie (whose voice and motion-captured movements came from actor Sharlto Copley) is rescued from the scrapheap by his creator, a disgruntled coder (Dev Patel).

However, once fully operational, Chappie unknowingly falls in with a bunch of scary Jo-Burg criminal types (charismatically played by Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser from South African rap-rave music act Die Antwoord).

On a storytelling level, Chappie can snap in and out of coherence all too quickly. When functioning purely as a goofy gangsta fairy tale, the film mixes a sweetness and a swagger that becomes quite addictive.

A bit goofy ... Dev Patel in a scene from Chappie. Picture: AP

However, Blomkamp’s aggressive attempts to make this strange affair also play as socio-political commentary is a complete failure.

Therefore, your real chances of enjoying Chappie will come down to how exciting you find its generous collection of splenetic (and sometimes gruesome) action sequences.

Might also be wise not to wonder too much about what the heck Hugh Jackman is up to here.

That’s him running about in a mullet-and-shorts ensemble, playing a Chappie-chasing villain surplus to actual requirements in most scenes.

*** for more reviews, news and updates, follow Leigh Paatsch on Twitter at @leighpaatsch and on Instagram at leighpaatsch ***

Originally published as Chappie is a frustratingly scrappy gangsta-robot fairytale