| Flicks

FLICKS: Chappie, Eva & The Lovers

Posted on 12 March 2015 by LeslieM

By Dave Montalbano

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

After viewing the last of the Academy Award Best Picture nominations, I thought it was time to take a break from the “serious” fare and view pure “escapist” entertainment like Chappie, featuring Sigourney Weaver, Hugh Jackman and acclaimed director Neill Bomkamp.

How could a film about science fiction robots fail?

While it does not quite fail, it does not succeed either.

Somewhere in the not-too-distant-future, robots have become the police force of Johannesburg, South Africa. Due to aggressive police policies, crime is minimal. However, there are a bunch of low intelligence thugs that like to steal money and create havoc. During a routine raid, a robot is shot down.

Enter Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), a genius inventor who seeks to make the robots more autonomous with his gifted software. Enter Arch Rival Vincent (Hugh Jackman) who has created a behemoth robot that relies on human communication. Enter boss Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver) who only seeks a profit in selling low cost protectors of society.

Had Bradley not scrimped on the security budget, she would have noticed the criminal activities of Vincent and Deon. Eventually, Deon inserts his lifegiving software to the slain robot and “Chappie” is born. Chappie, who is kidnapped by South African gangsters, [portrayed by Ninja and Yolandi of the rap-rave group Die Antwoord] becomes acclimated to their culture and speaks their lingo.

Chappie is cute, but suffers from too many story logic flaws. It is also a movie that distracts you and makes you think of other science fiction movies like Wall-E, X-Men, Alien and Blomkamp’s Oscar-nominated science fiction flick District 9. Too bad, but the film is open-ended enough for a sequel.

This Friday the 13th features the opening of two new movies.

Eva is the recipient of 3 Goya Awards, Spain’s version of the academy awards. Like Chappie, it deals with robotics, but it also deals with human expression and emotions.

Sans robots, The Lovers is Roland Joffe’s return to prestige from his triumphs three decades ago with films like The Killing Fields and The Mission. Josh Hartnett is a marine biologist who travels from India to the Caribbean in the 18th century. This film also includes Bollywood Idol Bipasha Basu in her international film debut.

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