Neill Blomkamp
Chappie - Humandroid

In the total destruction of modern filmography, one of the most interesting "sectors" in recent years is that of "indie science fiction." Titles like Duncan Jones' "Moon," Spike Jonze's "Her," the recent "Ex Machina" by Garland, have stood out for the "minimalism" of the staging and for an authorship with a "soft" character, increasingly rare in the ostentatious commerciality of today's cinema. To broaden this horizon, the name Blomkamp fits into the framework of the more inflated sci-fi action, even if it must be said that the South African filmmaker has over the years developed his personal cinematic trend by mixing a documentary style, action with "computerized" traits, and a classic reminiscence borrowed from the masters of the genre. It is with these characteristics that Blomkamp presented himself to the general public with his first two feature films: the dazzling debut of "District 9" (2009) and the more rhetorical and blockbuster style "Elysium" (2013). The same stylistic path is followed by "Chappie", Neill's third effort, marred in our country with the title "Humandroid."

Blomkamp returns to Johannesburg: machines, the "scouts," have now replaced humans as the police force. Deon (the young Dev Patel) is the creator of the scouts and is working on a project to create a robot capable of feeling emotions, a sentient machine with consciousness. Chappie will be his creation. Vincent (Hugh Jackman) is a tough and pure, an old-school Christian conservative. For him, the scouts are a problem, and his solution is the mega robot Moose, considered by the same police as something already outdated, as well as too expensive. The clash between two different ways of seeing reality.

One of the few certainties regarding Blomkamp's third work is that it has divided both the audience and especially the critics. For some, the theme of AI is now obsolete and overused (true), for others, the problem of the film is the robot being too childish. Truthful considerations, to which is added a not particularly brilliant screenplay that tends to make events "precipitate," especially in the second half of the film. However, what should be emphasized is the continuation of a stylistic, but also thematic, path that Blomkamp has been pursuing since "District 9": his is a "social science fiction" that, before venturing into pure action, wants to explore the relationships between humans and machines, more generally the confrontation/clash with the different or what we consider such. Chappie is nothing more than the vehicle through which the author wants to explore that feeling of being excluded from society, which is one of the most recurring aspects of contemporary times. The scene in which some boys beat up Chappie because they consider him a scout, but simply because he is "different" from them, recalls that aversion toward what we do not know, which is one of humanity's great fears. And it is in this vein that Chappie appears much more human than the humans themselves, driven by a "moral code" that the characters around him are almost entirely lacking. Blomkamp uses science fiction to talk about racism, and those who have seen in this work a simple action with robots have probably misunderstood the director's primary intent. Also evident is the jab at the Christian world, somehow represented by Hugh Jackman's character: a conservative who makes the sign of the cross but has no issues using violence to remove what he does not deem conforming to his world. Progress is a problem for him, just as it seems to be for part of the Catholic world...

"Humandroid" is a kind of coming-of-age story with an android twist, where what surrounds the protagonist robot works less well than the good Chappie: and while on one side it's important to highlight that there is a direction still too tied and similar to the previous two works, it must also be said that Blomkamp's path is coherent and linear, well supported by a high-level staging. A work that sometimes seems too simplistic in some script choices, but that also shows a filmmaker capable of reinterpreting with a personal stylistic belief what were the great sci-fi titles of the eighties (and there's no need to mention them). At the same time, it is a feature film that has carpentered locations and atmosphere, the geometric plasticity of Mann, the intuitions of the early Cameron.

The only great certainty of "Chappie" is that it will continue to divide critics and the audience.