Movie Notes: Chappie (2015)

Directed by Neill Blomkamp, Chappie is a Science Fiction movie set in the near future in Johannesburg South Africa who is the pioneer in the use of a mechanized artificial intelligence police force invented by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) of Tetravaal, a weapons manufacturer.

After several hours of trial at home, Deon has successfully completed his programming of a conscious Artificial Intelligence capable of learning like a human being. He tried to convince his boss to allow him to test it on one of the damaged robot police (Scout 22). However, Tetravaal CEO Michelle Bradley has denied Deon's request to test his programming stressing that they are in the business of manufacturing weaponry and not robots who can write poetry. Unabated in his effort to try his creation, Deon steals the damaged unit 22 with some spare parts but on his way home was hijacked by a group of Gangsters who thought they could use Deon to turn off the police robots. Through coercion, Deon has successfully created Chappie starting with the consciousness similar to a learning toddler.

Caught in a brothel of complications thereafter, Chappie is confronted with various situations that would mold him into a real conscious entity capable of learning and understanding.


My Take

I was hesitant at first to really watch the movie and thought of it as another run off the mill movie of the mechanized law enforcement genre stemming from Robocop (the earliest popular reference I could think of). However, to my surprise watching Chappie became an interesting experience. It posits mind-body dualism - where our consciousness and flesh are treated as separate substances - and eventual discovery of how we can achieve immortality through the transcendence of the immortal self (which is I believe is the soul)  into another vessel.

Chappie's charm can be attributed to its very weird mixture of premises because an outright plot makes a  boring movie, one review says its a mixture of Bicentennial Man and Pacific Rim.

The context of the movie which is a dystopian gangster plagued society that showed us not only the extent of human cruelty and greed but surprisingly the instinctive goodness of familial loving instinct as Yolandi and Ninja take on the role of surrogate parents was almost paradoxical but somehow worked for the film. I can think of empathy and even the subtle relativeness of morality - in the context of seeing man as pure goodness or evil.

It is also one thing to note the Divine-Creation relationship between Deon and Chappie as the latter questions his creators intentions upon confrontation the temporal nature of his body.


In the midst all the chaos, cruelty, confusion, bomb explosions, death and profanity in the movie, it is a miracle that one such innocent character was able to thrive, discover and validate his own existence - that is something we should be able to learn as well.

The movie tiptoes between being a film that delves with existential constructs to mere carnage, thus caution is given not to be too critical on either two. In general, in terms of fire power, action and science fiction wonder, the movie passed my standards.

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Photo Source : Chappie and here