At
least in terms of its themes, if Pinocchio, Oliver Twist,
Robocop, and Short
Circuit ever got bored and
decided to start fucking then Chappie
would be the spunky mess that gets left on the bed sheets. Set in the
near future, Johannesburg has become so shitty that the South African
government has had to invest in a squadron of attack robots to try
and stem the flow of crime. These cyborgs have pinpoint accuracy,
armour plating, and are as ruthlessly efficient at stopping
wrong-doers as the American police are with little, unarmed, black
children. Meanwhile the robots creator Dev Patel has just figured
out how to make his products a little less murdery and a little more
thinky which he celebrates by having Chappie, his prototype, promptly
stolen from him by a couple of criminals. By coincidence, it's also
worth noting that the two kidnappers are two of the biggest
fuck-nuggets I've ever seen... more on them later I suppose.
Essentially Chappie
tells the story of the worlds first, completely sentient robot, and
how it's forced to choose its morality whilst simultaneously learning
the hard facts about how shite our species really is.
This
is the third film from Director Neill Blomkamp after the world saw
his District 9 and
claimed him to be a genius, before
then watching his Elysium and
instantly retracting it. Sadly for him it seemed that his difficult
second album led directly onto his piece-of-shit third one, with
reviews for Chappie
generally being as negative as a pregnancy test that's covered in
Nun's piss. Obviously I'm nothing more than a space-chimp clinging
to its own shitty existence on an obscure planet full of equally
pointless lifeforms, but for what it's worth, I too had my mind blown
by District 9. Sure it
had its own distinct style whilst also being a metaphor for South
Africa's history of racial segregation, but who doesn't love a film
about some giant fucking prawns?! Elysium too
was a film that dared to comment on the state of healthcare and
economic deprivation whilst also being about some bald twat in a
metal suit that he uses to punch robots with. People criticised
Blomkamp's second film for re-treading the themes of his debut
feature whilst also having too many ideas and too little focus.
Intellectually, I suppose I agree with this, but like a stoner having waaaay too much
food nearby, I couldn't help but enjoy
it all on an entirely gut level.
In
many ways the issues that people had with Elysium are
again true of Chappie, but
with this third movie throwing a few more problems in for good
measure. If anything, his latest film retreats even further back to
District 9 to the
point that, structurally and stylistically, they're near on identical.
In fact, if you were to re-watch his first film but with rusty bits of
metal jammed into your eyes I'm sure you wouldn't even be able to
tell the difference. Both films begin with documentary-like vox pops
describing the consequences of the film we're about to watch. They
also tell the story of a science-fiction being who starts the film as an
oppressed innocent that's fucked over by society, before showing its
full capability in an explosive third act. In Chappie's
case, it's
a bit like watching Free Willy but
only if that film ended with the Whale escaping its tank by strapping a
load of bombs to itself and failing to give a shit. Or, if after
seeing the pure-hearted but dim-witted Forrest Gump spend
two hours being bullied, that film concluded in the much more
realistic way of having him end a three hour shooting spree by
popping the gun in his mouth and blowing his fucking brains out.
Oh
and in terms of the similarities between Chappie and
District 9, there's
obviously the obvious stuff such as the gritty camera-work being used
to show South African poverty, humanity's selfishness, and the shady
dealings of weapons manufacturers. As a disillusioned member of our
over-evolved monkey species, I can't help but agree with Blomkamps
overall vibe that humanity is an irrational and destructive shit
stain on the crust of planet Earth. In many ways it seems that
Chappie's innocence
exists within the story as a way of simply showing how horrible we
are by contrast. Though on top of re-treading all of these previous
themes, the film also deals with the idea of sentience, what it means
to be both artificial and conscious, and whether or not our mind and
our body are two separate things when it comes to our identity.
Does
Chappie manage to balance all of
these various ideas in a successful and competent way? Does it
bollocks! Instead it essentially just throws so much shit at the wall
that the wall has simply become the supporting structure to what
superstitious locals might worship as “The Mountain Of Poo”.
Does
this mean that Chappie
is a bad film? Probably. It's certainly not a great one anyway.
However, did I dislike it? No. In fact, as with Elysium, I
couldn't help but enjoy it despite its obvious problems. In a world
of Transformers, can I
really hate a film that's biggest issue is that it has too many
ideas? Chappie is a
bit like Stephen Hawking in that its brain is in the right place,
it's just that its structure leaves a lot to be desired. Rather than
dealing with these issues in a thorough and logical way, the narrative
is pretty much all over the place as though it's trying to balance a
hundred spinning plates whilst on roller-skates and suffering from
cerebral palsy. But I'd be absolutely lying if I said that I hadn't
found the movie to be really entertaining. Blomkamp is at a point now
in which he runs the risk of being justifiably labeled a one trick
pony, but like Sticky Vicky and the projectiles loaded into her
vagina, it's a trick that I'm not yet tired of seeing. It's brimming
with thoughts, features amazing special effects, and has some fun,
skilfully constructed action scenes. Due to him having been adopted
by his gangster kidnappers, Chappie has been taught the local lingo
and blinged up to look like a twat. There's no doubting that
Transformers was
lacking in most departments but I can't help but think it would have
been slightly improved had Optimus Prime been wearing some garish jewellery whilst throwing Ninja Stars at peoples faces and screaming “EYYYY, WHAT'S UP FUCKMOTHERS”.
Speaking
of Chappie's adopted gangster parents, I feel it may as well be time
to talk about the rappers that played them. Collectively known as Die
Antwoord, Ninja and Yolandi Visser may be two of the most annoying
fucking people I've seen this side of The Jeremy Kyle Show. It
also seems as though almost every problem with the film can be pinned
on them and the decision to focus on them. I mean, this is a film that
features both Wolverine and Ellen Ripley, and yet for some reason we
spend the bulk of the running time with a couple of cocks that look
like they've been kicked head first through a charity shop at the
Thunderdome. As characters, nothing they do makes sense.. Why do they
let Dev Patel visit them and his stolen robot whenever he pleases? Do
they not think that he might retaliate at some point? Why does Ninja
leave Chappie in the middle of nowhere despite still needing him to
commit robberies? Did it not occur to him that the machine might not
make it back in one piece? Some people can't see a wall without
feeling the urge to spray paint a massive dick onto it and so what do
you think is going to happen to an unarmed and lonely robot? I mean,
moments like this are definitely plot-holes, with the films only
saving grace being that I imagine those characters are that fucking
stupid that they'd do those things. And of course it's true that
your lead characters don't have to be likeable, smart or relatable. But from an
audience's point of view, it might have been a good idea to at least
make them slightly more interesting than the freckle formations on an old man's
scrotum.
Of
course, you could argue that this is still Blomkamp's fault for
writing two shitty characters, but there's a catch. According to
behind the scenes sources, Die Antwoord were pure bell-ends to be
around. It's alleged that Ninja harassed female crew members, sent
around pictures of his rotten cock getting sucked, and he even dared
to tell other actors how to do their job. I mean, if the fucker was
any good at acting, that'd still be offensive, but his range seems
significantly limited to being somewhere between being a grade-A
tosser and a mentally deficient knob-womble. It's also said that
things got so bad on set that whilst waiting for Jackman to arrive in
the country for his scenes that the director decided to use the time to
re-write the script. Anonymous sources have described Ninja as being
“pure evil”, and apparently Blomkamp decided that he didn't want
him back on set. As a result, the wailing, scrawny, pissflap found
some of his scenes deleted due to his inability to refrain from being
a massive, slimy bell-end. So if we accept that the two biggest problems
of this movie are both it's focus on Die Antwoord and a sporadic
narrative then perhaps we can give Blomkamp the benefit of the doubt.
It's not his fault that Ninja turned out to be the human equivalent
of a bucket of puss and shite.. and perhaps those scenes that he was
forced to re-write are the reason for the films wonky structure.
Obviously this is all speculation.. but if you see a picture of what
Ninja looks like then I can guarantee that your politest snap
judgement would be that he looks like a fucking twatty little dick spurt.
But,
after all the swearing, I'd just like to reiterate that I did like
this film. I agree that it has more problems than a single mum with a
crack habit, but I also think that its pros outweigh its cons.
Sure, Blomkamp is skidding dangerously close to over repeating himself, but
I handed a re-written version of the same essay in for about five
different assignments during my degree. Turns out that you can't
actually be done for plagiarizing your own work and there's no doubt
that Blomkamp is a distinctive voice in an over-crowded market of
sell-outs, hacks, and talentless gimps. Maybe it's unfair of me to
suggest that Ninja is responsible for the film's problems when all I
have is anonymous sources and allegations. But you know, his name is
Ninja.. if that doesn't scream “I'm a prick”, then nothing does.
You might watch this film, hate it, and that's probably fair enough. I
wouldn't argue. But with its big ideas, over-arching themes of
existentialism, and its shit-talking robot, I think that Chappie is
a bit like bungee jumping, marmite, or heroin. It might not be for
everyone but that's not to say you shouldn't give it a try yourself.
Thanks for reading motherfuckers, and see you next time.
You can visit the blog picture artist at _Moriendus_
You can visit the blog picture artist at _Moriendus_
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