The director of District 9 and Elysium has another high concept sci-fi romp in the works, this time tackling the classic territory of Artificial Intelligence.
Blomkamp has shown a shrewd and biting sense of social commentary in both District 9 and Elysium, providing compelling sci-fi allegories of apartheid and income-inequality/immigration respectively. Coupled with his knack for visceral creative action, Blomkamp’s filmography so far has been thoroughly entertaining and thought provoking.
The first trailer for Chappie definitely has the potential to continue this impressive streak. The artificially intelligent robot named Chappie is well designed and interesting to watch, visually somewhere between Dog from Half Life 2 and Johnny 5 but bipedal, at least to my eyes. The trailer brings up questions of development analogous to children, AI being a crapshoot and Human hostility to the unfamiliar.
Judging by just the trailer, it’s hard to infer exactly why all humanity turns against Chappie, other than that being par for the course in movies like this. However, I expect Blomkamp’s ultimate plot and character arc to be a bit more subtle and original.
Chappie stars Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Sigourney Weaver and Hugh Jackman. Check out the trailer below!
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