Chappie 2015

     The setting of this film is Johannesburg, South Africa in the near future.  The police department has been using robots from the Tetra Vaal Company as policemen.  This has reduced deaths of human policemen and really helped with the high crime rates in this area.  Deon Wilson is the designer of the robots and Vincent Moore is jealous of Deon.  Vincent has developed a different type of robot called the Moose.  A headset worn by Vincent remotely controls this robot.  Deon has made the leap to Artificial Intelligence but Michelle Bradley, the CEO of Tetra Vaal won’t allow him to use this on the police robots.  He recovers a damaged police robot from the crusher and tests the A.I. platform on him.  Unfortunately, the criminals Ninja, Yo-Landi and Amerika kidnap Deon.  They want him to program the robot to help them with their crimes and they name him Chappie.

     There have been other films using robots as policemen but this is the first using Artificial Intelligence with the robot thinking and feeling.  In RoboCop, parts of an injured human were blended with robot parts.  Chappie’s human like behavior did draw me to him and I was pretty mad when he was getting ‘hurt!!’  Plus, he seems more human than the real human characters!!  3* (This movie is OK)

120 min, Action directed by Neill Blomkamp with Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo Sigourney Weaver, Brandon Auret, Johnny Selema, Anderson Cooper.

Note:  Imdb 6.9 out of 10, 31% critic 56% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 1*, Amazon 3.4* out of 5* with 2297 reviews.

Special Note:  The director Neill Blomkamp also made District 9 and Elysium.  He has announced his next film with be a new addition to the Alien series.  Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Johannesburg, Soweto, Hillbrow, South Africa.