CHAPPIE
**
DIRECTED BY Neill Blomkamp
STARS Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel
I'm not going to go as far as the fellow screening attendant who suggested Chappie should have been called Crappie, but coming on the heels of the equally disappointing Elysium, it looks like writer-director Neill Blomkamp might be a one-trick pony ... and that one trick was District 9.
Like that critical and commercial hit from 2009, Chappie is set in the South Africa of the future, this one envisioned as a lawless zone where the crime rate was out of control until enterprising young developer Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), working for a company headed by the no-nonsense Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver), created an army of cyborg policemen. Calling them RoboCops — wait, wrong movie — Deon then believes he can do even better by creating an AI who's every bit as sentient as human beings. He comes up with Johnny Five — sorry, no, that's Short Circuit — he comes up with Chappie (District 9 star Sharlto Copley), a childlike robot who falls under the influence of a violent hoodlum named Ninja (played by rap-rave artist Ninja of the group Die Antwoord) and his more softhearted girlfriend Yolandi (played by rap-rave artist Yo-landi Vi$$er of the group Die Antwoord). While Deon is off trying to keep Chappie from embarking on a life of crime, a rival inventor, an ex-military bully named Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman), seeks approval from Michelle for his robo-creation, a monolith that looks suspiciously like RoboCop's ED-209.
Copley provides some touching moments as the E.T.-like robot whose natural curiosity is no match for the harsh realities of the world, but sloppy scripting, particularly when it comes to character motivation (Deon's actions rarely make sense) and character development (Ninja improbably transforms from Tony Montana in Scarface to Father O'Malley in Going My Way), damages the picture at every juncture. And then there's the climactic resolution, which is nothing short of head-smackingly stupid. It's the worst element in the entire picture — unless, of course, you count that hideous mullet perched on top of poor Hugh Jackman's noggin.
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