It's quite amusing how similar CHAPPIE is to Short Circuit at first glance. Both movies concern a robot becoming sentient, but it's the smaller details are what make the comparisons feel apt. Both 'bots were partly created by Indian men (Fisher Stevens with a silly accent in Short Circuit, Dev Patel here), and Chappie also contains a sequence where a street gang initiate the robot into their group. I'm hopeful it will otherwise be a very different film, although it strikes me as odd how South African director Neill Blomkamp keeps making films with robots/aliens created using motion-capture (regular collaborator Sharlto Copley's the actor in a ping pong-adorned leotard for this). Still, Blomkamp has a distinctively grungy look, and I'm a big fan of District 9. Hopefully, Chappie will be the hit he needs after the weak Elysium.
CHAPPIE premieres in the U.S and UK on 6 March 2015.
