sustain:if:able kiwi

Chappie: a theological film review

Monthly I publish a film review for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 90 plus films later, here is the review for April 2015, of Chappie.

Chappie

Bullying is soul destroying. It corrodes confidence, shredding the individual of self-worth. Yet a scene of bullying is instrumental in the success of Chappie.

Chappie, like other films directed by Neill Blomkamp, including Alive in Joburg (2005) and District 9 (2009), is set in South Africa. Similarly, Chappie like District 9, Elysium (2013) and the upcoming Alien project, sees Blomkamp continuing to explore the interplay between human and alien.

In Chappie we are plunged into a future in which crime is soaring. In a city out of control, the South African Police send in robots, equipped to detect and disarm.

As Chappie begins, there is little to love in each of the main characters. Deon (Dev Patel), scientific conceiver of robots, is a workaholic geek. Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman), a work colleague, is the disgruntled loner, determined to build a meaner, more military robotic option. Ninja and Yolandi (named after themselves) are gangsters, needing millions of dollars to pay off a drugs deal gone bad. Chappie is a Police robot, number 22, repeatedly damaged by his encounters the likes of Ninja and Yolinda.

This means that Blomkamp has some major directorial work to do. He has to help us, the audience, find emotional connections with at least one of his unlikeable main characters.

Blomkamp’s answer is bullying. Ninja and Yolandi capture Dion who, in exchange for his life, agrees to load the damaged robot number 22 with artificial intelligence. It generates a classic ethical dilemma, a confrontation between good and evil.

Dion as the robot’s maker expects number 22, now named Chappie, to refuse to commit crime. Ninja, as the gangster, works to enlist Chappie in order to repay his drugs debts. Thus Chappie finds himself exposed to the real world, where he will be stoned by a group of boys and tortured by Vincent Moore.

It is these scenes of bullying that allow the audience to connect with a robot. It is an astonishing piece of storytelling. Chappie, a robot becomes a loveable main character. Through pain, a piece of metal gains our affection.

In doing so Blomkamp ushers in a wide range of theological themes, including identity, faith and hope. Watching Chappie with a church group would open up significant discussions about the Christian understanding of being human. The downloading of consciousness to create a new body opens up ways to explore the Christian understanding of the resurrection of the dead. The conversation in which Chappie asks Deon why he built him to die offers a rich introduction to Christian notions of freewill in a created creation.

Despite Blomkamp’s feats of storytelling and the resultant feast of theological themes, Chappie comes with significant plot holes. The movie unsettles as it wobbles uneasily between comedy and pathos. The genre of comedy works because it amplifies (for more see the brilliant Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art). What Blomkamp chooses to amplify leaves the viewer caught. Watching Chappie a robot, being stoned is as funny as it as disturbing. But then perhaps that is actually how bullying starts, as what begins as fun for one ushers in pain for another.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal at the Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide. He is the author of The Out of Bounds Church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change, (Zondervan, 2005) and writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.