After that, the South African did Elysium which was fun but flimsy.
His films represent racism and discrimination really well. Now we see what he does with humanity with his third installment, Chappie.
There is a lot of the usual things in a Blomkamp film, it's set in Johannesburg and features Sharlto Copley as one of the main characters.
But I'm afraid, this films has MAJOR problems. Starting with the positives is not a good thing. The big ones are the writing and the characters.
Blomkamp brought in two South African rappers from the band Die Antwood. There appearance was to merely promote the band and their songs that are all over this film. One of them is called Ninja. His acting is pretty poor and you are actually supposed to like him. His character is very annoying and bit of a moron. I am not surprised that he was apparently hard to work with behind the scenes. The other member played by Yolandi Visser did start off terrible with acting that would feel at home in The Karate Kid Part III. However, she does get better as she becomes more believable as the films goes along. I found her quite an attractive screen presence, but still annoying at times.
I'm afraid Blomkamp needs to get out of South Africa when it comes to casting.
Dev Patel's character was poorly developed and like everyone else, their choices during the film were unrealistic.
The big name actors Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver were totally wasted. Jackman's character was probably the only one that made sense, but the poor writing gave him no depth and Weaver was non-existent in a role that anyone could have played. There were lots of moments of when Hugh Jackman's character is on screen and he always seems to be carrying a Rugby ball. It really annoyed me as to why this was even happening.
Even Chappie as a character was misused. You are obviously supposed to feel for him. But the choices he makes, makes you want to hate him and you have no idea who to root for.
As for the writing, it felt quite amateurish and the story structure was completely thrown out of the window. It felt like Blomkamp was so excited to get to the next scene that he was not bothered if the previous scene made sense or not.
Also, there were awful problems with the pacing and you just get frustrated instead of being engaged.
Thankfully, the reliable parts of Blomkamps previous works are still the best parts of the film. The visual effects are brilliant. The effects of Chappie himself seams perfectly with the live-action. Also, the imagination of the weapons technology remains highly impressive.
Another thing that Blomkamp gets right is the action. The scenes are outstanding and the finale was by far the most gripping part of the film. Thankfully, the questionable shaky-cam from Elysium has been taken out and we are back with old reliable.
Sadly despite all those good things, there a lot of things that do not work and are highly critical problems.
It is a big disappointment, especially when you can see the ideas are there to be taken. It has nice similarities to District 9, Robocop and Short Circuit, but I'm afraid Blomkamp dropped the ball with this one. The final act is the best of the part of the film. There is great intense action and you think the finale might redeem itself. But sadly, the very final part brought all the previous problems back with a rushed ending and no explanation of how the story got to that stage. Such a shame.
I think for future reference, Blomkamp should stick to directing and not take part in the script writing. I still feel he is a talented director, but he needs to learn from his mistakes quickly. Especially as he has now been put in as the director for a new Alien film.
Rating: 6/10
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