I wasn’t a huge fan of Neill Blomkamp‘s District 9, to the point I shut it off after about 30 minutes when I tried re-watching it recently, and I don’t have an opinion of Elysium as I never had any interest in seeing it. So while the first official poster for Blomkamp’s upcoming film Chappie is likely to generate excitement among those firmly on the Blomkamp train, ultimately it leaves me puzzled trying figure out the exact tone the movie is shooting for.
Whether to the film’s benefit or detriment, the poster (see below) is silly as can be, featuring a robot wearing a massive gold dollar-sign medallion, playing with wooden alphabet blocks — which spell his name, because obviously — and packing a little heat off to his side as well. Co-written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, Chappie is a sci-fi comedy, so the silliness makes sense to a degree, but overall I can’t say the poster does much to persuade me to place Chappie high on my 2015 watchlist.
The film stars Sharlto Copley as the voice of an artificially intelligent robot who is stolen by two local gangsters (Ninja and Yolandi Visser) who want to use him for their own nefarious purposes. Chappie also features Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver. It is set for a March 6, 2015 release date.
