Friday, March 13, 2015

Review: CHAPPiE

Bots Not To Love About Chappie?

3 stars

Mini Review:

From R2D2 to The Terminator and Wall-E and Eve, we love Robots. And this gangsta robot may come across as a spinoff of Robocop, but has so much heart, you too will fall in love with Chappie as I did.

Main Review:

The movie is set in Johannesburg, South Africa and those not used to the Afrikaan accent /Sowetospeak, will appreciate the subtitles. That said, the story of robot police saving the city from the looters seems like a repeat of Robocop.

But wait! There's Dev Patel... playing the nerd again (nervous, hesitant The Newsroom role flasback) and there's one robot who turns out to be like Johnny 5 (again an Indian nerd owner/maker) of Short Circuit. 

('Dammit!' you think, when you watch Dev Patel do the nerd thing and give his robot real artificial intelligence by programming, failing, re-programming and failing again. 'It just took a short circuit to make Johnny 5 alive, didn't you see that movie?')

In spite of those references of all the robot movies you have seen, Chappie gets under your skin...

I was touched not just by the innocence (Chappie and the stray dog... Chappie says, 'I've got blings?') but by his learning of 'people's ways'...

I was reminded of Pran when I watched how jaw-dropping awful the villain gets. He's vicious with that circular saw. He's vicious with a remote control. He's vicious in his office guy avatar. Yes, I'm talking about the sexy, awesome hero until now: Hugh Jackman.

But it is Chappie who has so much screen presence, you want to take him home...

Watch this film and discover a part of your heart that is still alive and drenched in the milk of human kindness...

p.s.: there is a superb list of robot films here: http://www.gamesradar.com/50-greatest-movie-robots/




   


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