Neill Blomkamp has made two feature-length movies. Movie one District 9 is a great sci-fi alt-history, one I never tire of watching. Movie two is Elysium which has some nice moments and visuals, but a terrible story, boring characters and far too many plot-holes to overlook.
Next year, we get movie three, Chappie. From the trailer, it appears that Chappie is a damaged police robot, recovered, repaired and somehow given artificial intelligence. The movie seems to follow the emerging AI as it tries to create an identity, while being hunted by people who see it as a threat.
Visually, the movie looks good. Blomkamp is good at creating immersive worlds, places you want to see more of, that seem realistic enough that you can speculate about what is happening around the corner without seeing it. From the trailer, you can't get a sense of the acting, although there are some heavy hitters in the cast (Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver). The blonde chick is South African rapper Anri du Toit; we'll see how that casting decision goes.
One problem I have with the story as presented is the resemblance to Short Circuit. While there are a lot of movies (not to mention books, comics, etc) about emerging AIs, these two films seem to track pretty closely. In Short Circuit, Number Five is a combat robot who suffers damages from a lightening strike that damages his software, allowing him to become self-aware. After meeting Ally Sheedy (one of my childhood cinema crushes), he eventually decides that he does not want to go back to the military, because they will "kill" him.
Given what we see in the trailer, this film seems a lot like that. There's nothing inherently wrong with telling the same basic story; however, it does make me wonder if Blomkamp is the best choice as a writer (I have no doubts about his abilities as a visual director). I'm encouraged by the fact that his District 9 co-writer Terri Tatchell is on this project, whereas Blomkamp was solely responsible for Elysium's terrible story. Hopefully, the resemblance to Short Circuit is superficial and that Chappie has something new and interesting to say about mankind's relationship to technology and how we treat the other. If not...well, at least it'll look nice.
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