Consciousness Morality for Robots in Odd ‘Chappie’

Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Who would think a robot movie would teach us about being more intuitively “human”? “Chappie” is a very peculiar film – with fighting robots, violence and grit on one side, and the tenderness of finding a nurturing source and a consciousness on the other. It is worth experiencing.

Neill Blomkamp, the director of the Oscar nominated “District 9” and 2013’s “Elysium,” is no stranger to bleak world views, and often uses this perspective as a means to a larger perspective. “Chappie” is no exception, as the meaning of consciousness and nurturing come through the bang-bang of warring criminal gangs and robot police officers. Blomkamp also uses his allegories in strange and sometimes off putting ways, and while “Chappie” has some of those bizarre sidetracks, sticking with the film all the way will yield some very thoughtful rewards.

Johannesburg, South Africa, is a lawless city that has lost the means of enforcement of social order. A robotics company steps in, and creates a squad of policing robots invented by Deon (Dev Patel), and overseen by his supervisor Michelle (Sigourney Weaver). The success and money it brings angers a rival inventor in the company, Vincent (Hugh Jackman), as his “Moose” robot gets cut from funding.

You Know His Name, Look Up His Number in ‘Chappie’
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Releasing

All is success until Police Robot 22 is destroyed so viciously that it’s headed for the scrap pile. Deon uses this opportunity to revive 22, and insert a new “consciousness” software, designed to give the robot feelings. As he is bringing the robot home, they are kidnapped by criminal gang members Ninja (Watkin Tudor Jones) and Yolandi (Yo-Landi Visser), and the newly dubbed “Chappie” is adopted by his law breaker parents, to learn the ways of the world.

The atmosphere that Neill Blomkamp creates is filthy, violent and a bit too “black & white” in morality. The villains in the piece are laughable evil, somewhat like the lawless gunslingers of the Old West movies. Ninja and Yolandi are so strangely drawn, with virtually no desire except for gold, that it nearly derails the attention span of the film. But when the narrative allows them to become “parents,’ of Chappie the robot, it wakes up some odd notions of what nurturing means.

The face off between Dev Patel’s Deon – so perky and selfless that it invites mocking – and Hugh Jackman’s Vincent seemed squeezed into the story, if only to animate the huge Moose robot to face off against the “good” robots. It was so basic that it might have been written just to get Jackman into the story. The same goes for Sigourney Weaver, whose feckless bureaucrat was background noise.

The weirdest and coolest story was the nurturing of Chappie, by Ninja and Yolandi. The criminal pair adopts the robot, when Deon is allowed to escape in exchange for maintaining the rogue machine. Chappie (voice of Sharito Copley) embraces the speech mannerisms and style of the rapper thugs – Watkin Tudor Jones and Yo-Landi Visser are part of the South African rap group Die Antwoord – which is very Jar-Jar Binks, but ultimately is quite funny, and gives the film its idiosyncratic attitude.

Mother (Yo-Landi Visser) and Child Reunion in ‘Chappie’
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Releasing

The film becomes about the “inner consciousness,” and what it means. We are all born into certain environments, and our lives are influenced by that environment, and how it evolves. Chappie the robot goes through a shorthand version of that environmental nurturing – Deon invents a consciousness software, but Chappie becomes consciously reflective of his thug “parents.” The development based on that reflection is the moral imperative in the film, and concludes with some telling mind versus body circumstances.

Like “District 9” and like “Elysium,” the journey of “Chappie” is a non-traditional one, combining science fiction and an “issue” of our lives that makes it more like science fact, albeit through the rap stylings of a robotic piece of metal.

By PATRICK McDONALD Writer, Editorial Coordinator HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com