At one point in CHAPPiE a marginally important villain, when realizing that the robotic cop forces had gone offline and he has carte blanche to committing crime in the city, declares “I want all the things.” If not an exact quote, it’s pretty darn close.

While I appreciate how direct and easily interpreted such a proclamation is, I have to wonder if writer/director Neil Blomkamp was worried people wouldn’t understand the nuances of a criminal who wanted some quantity less than “all the things.” It’s a very simple idea said by a very stupid character and only underpins how the characters of CHAPPiE are as thick as paper mache’.  Unfortunately, this proclamation is the one line that seems to perfectly sum up what Neil Blomkamp was attempting to do in CHAPPiE. 

Which of these employees needs to visit HR?

Let’s step back for a second and look at how we got here. In 2013 the incredible and superior film Her comes out and explores the notion of creating a sentient computer. It starts slow and asks simple questions about what it means to be sentient. Each simple question leads to the next discovery, which leads to a new question, which leads to a new discovery. And by the time every computer decides to leave humanity by itself, we are fully on board. The logic was simple however the end result was anything but.

CHAPPiE starts with the same question. What if we took a broken down police robot and gave it true consciousness. But rather than asking “what happens next”, Blomkamp instead piles on more crap before ever seeing what he has in the first place. So let’s add to the mix a military industrial complex motivation. Also, a crazy ex-army whacko who will stop at nothing to bring his big weapons into the police force. And then there’s a group of insane South African criminals who have strange haircuts and need to raise 20 million dollars^* on a moment’s notice. And there’s a big business mogul who is not interested in the fact that her lead scientist INVENTED ARTIFICIAL LIFE. These are all the things happening BEFORE the robot gets turned on.

I do have brains to give. I just don’t know where to put them.

Inventing artificial intelligence that grows on its own is not enough for Blomkamp. That was done intelligently and thoughtfully a couple years ago so it must be played out or something. Instead we have a virtual playground of expensive ideas and poorly thought out dialogue. So what’s the plot?  Well, in a future South Africa, crime is way down after a set of robotic police officers are employed alongside human officers. Robot designer Deon takes one of them and inserts his brand new consciousness into it.

Before he can figure out what to do, he’s taken hostage by a band of criminals who need to make the said 20 million in a week. They steal the robot and teach it to be a criminal. The robot learns really broad lessons about the depravity of humanity and our crazed Sargent of Arms, who also makes robots, broadly endangers everyone to unleash his insane killing machine to stop CHAPPiE and prove human controlled robots are better.  There’s also a twist involving the internet, some PS4’s, and eternal life. Lots of stuff going on here. Any one of which would make for a full movie. Or we can throw them all into the cinematic salad shooter and aim it at the audience.

There’s a scene where super scientist Deon drives away from his robot and the surrounding criminal elements, screaming something about “don’t let them corrupt you.” It’s laughably bad dialog. As in, I laughed out loud. Or another favorite of mine has Sigourney Weaver running in a panic from her office as it’s being torn apart by a gigantic fight between a robot and a human and she thinks to grab her coat before heading out the broken door. And what I mean by that is the room she’s in – like actually in – is getting destroyed…  and… she… grabs… her… coat. Maybe it was Versace.

So what is good about CHAPPiE?

Special effects in the house!

The effects. The robots themselves are amazing. Blomkamp really knows how to put together something that looks believable. It’s truly stunning. He also has a definite visual story telling style. He loves to blend a pseudo-documentary look with big budget movie effects to place his stories into real-life feeling scenarios. Not coincidentally, each of his films so far has started way better than they ended. District 9, Elysium, and CHAPPiE all start like gang busters. This time with a set of news reports and exciting action sequences of police and robots taking down criminals that sets the stage and all the details in efficient fashion.

My friend G.I. Joe invited me to the film. I think he loves crazy spectacle and I believe is willing to be more forgiving than me. I said to him, “this movie is a mess.” And he said “yes, but at least it’s a hot mess.” So I guess that’s also a positive. If you’re going to go cray cray at least go big big.

CHAPPiE is not boring. But it’s also not good. I wish Blomkamp would have applied the simplification filter to his script ideas instead of to his marginalized villain’s desires. He wants all the things indeed. He has talent. No doubt. And he has ideas. For sure. He just needs someone to show him restraint.

At 120 minutes it feels like 150. It doesn’t end as much as it runs out of toys to play with.

^*By the way, maybe it was 20 million rand instead of dollars. Or heck, maybe generic credits. And my ethnocentric thinking heard it as dollars. Either way – it’s a lot of money in a short amount of time for seemingly no reason.