CHAPPIE (Rated R)

That the director of “District 9” also performed the same assignment for a film set in the dystopian future seemed to have a lot of promise, suggesting the type of science-fiction thriller with mass appeal.

Sadly for us and director Neill Blomkamp, “Chappie” is a tired and rusty exercise in formulaic filmmaking, resulting in an action thriller with only brief moments of excitement and not the least bit riveting for all the chaos created in its wake.

Oddly enough, the idea conveyed by “Chappie,” namely that a robot capable of human feeling and original thought could be the savior of an enslaved people yearning to be free and needing an ally to overthrow an oppressive police state, is never really materialized.

In the near future, Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa, is a war zone that is ten times worse than anything seen in the Bronx back in the 1970s.

A daily death count of 300 almost seems low compared to the rampant violence perpetrated by roving gangs and captured in full color on the evening news.

The answer to this massive crime wave is the mobilization of a police force of robots (think “Robocop”) that are called Scouts; they are droids with a skinny, practical human-like shape, of sorts, with a face that looks like a video monitor and large rabbit-like antenna ears.

Assembled by a private corporation, the robots have been designed by primary engineer Deon (Dev Patel), a geeky tech guy who dreams big of creating a robot with artificial intelligence.

The Scouts are just killing machines that are controlled by monitors to gun down the gangsters that run out of control in sadistic rampages.

Rescuing a damaged droid from being crushed like the black Lincoln Continental in “Goldfinger,” Deon decides to ignore company policy and tinker with reassembling the robot with spare parts, just so that he program it with the ability to think and feel.
 
Unfortunately, the repaired robot falls into the hands of vicious gangsters, a terrible trio of poseurs, including fittingly Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser, members of the wild and crazy South African rap band Die Antwoord.

The two of them, covered in tattoos and bad haircuts, become surrogate parents to a robot they call Chappie (voiced by Sharlto Copley).

Where does Chappie’s creator, Deon, fit into all this? Well, he’s abducted along with the droid, but then released on the promise to return and help tutor the childlike robot into a functioning adult.

The problem is that Ninja and Yo-Landi, seemingly of low intelligence and bad manners, teach Chappie to cuss and walk like a street thug, while wearing rapper bling.

Needless to say, Deon is not too happy about the bad influences imposed on Chappie, since he desperately wanted to create a sentient being, albeit one of manufactured intelligence, yet capable of being a better person than the degenerates who have taken him.

Meanwhile, Deon has to contend with a rival colleague Vincent (Hugh Jackman), who wants to see the Scouts fail only so that he can get the green-light for his own creation, the Moose, an aptly-named monster droid that resembles something out of “Transformers.”

The head of the Tetra Vaal corporation that makes the robots is the no-nonsense Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver, largely wasted with little to do other than deny Deon his wish to create a sentient robot), who only cares about the bottom line, not the efficacy of the robotic policing efforts.

Director Blomkamp evidently had in mind developing larger themes of moral conscience, societal collapse and the oppressive weight of authority juxtaposed with unchecked rebellion, albeit one fueled by criminal greed rather than any idealistic notions of liberation.

Yet, any thematic notions of grander issues are lost in the shuffle of bombast and fairly absurd violence, such as the street riots that overtake Johannesburg when the police robots are short-circuited and literally fall down on the job.

Indeed, “Chappie” becomes regrettable because the titular robot represented hope for creating a better world, allowing those unjustly oppressed by a police state to rebel. Instead, Chappie is merely used by one set of gangsters to fight even worse criminals, as well as to carjack some high-priced wheels.

Scratch beneath the surface of the action scenes, the best of which come near the end when Chappie battles the Moose, and we’re left with an action film that isn’t terribly interesting. “Chappie” fails to connect on the central idea that a machine could literally come alive.

After about two hours of listening to the annoying voice of Chappie, the last thing that any sentient being would want is for this robot to be fully realized with artificial intelligence.

Better that “Chappie” be soon forgotten, which is probably more likely than not.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.