mona rae

The 87th Academy Awards has come and gone.

Having seen “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, “Birdman”, “Boyhood”, “Unbroken”, “The Theory of Everything”, “The Imitation Game”, “Foxcatcher”, “Selma”, “Big Hero 6″ and “American Sniper” (all for free, as I work for a cinema — p.s. PLEASE TAKE YOUR LARGE, FULL SODAS OUT OF THE THEATRE WITH YOU, BECAUSE I ONLY HAVE TWO HANDS), I was rooting for “The Grand Budapest Hotel” for best picture.

As a writer of all trades with a Masters in Playwriting and Screenwriting, first-hand experience in film and television, and appreciation for good storytelling in all platforms (and yes, video games DO count as a medium), I loved every element of the film start to finish — the score, the pacing, the characters; their costumes and make-up; the actors and actresses chosen to portray them (nothing makes me cringe more than an unconvincing actor delivering an unconvincing line); the dialogue — and the amount of it against the shots doing the rest of the explaining (the shots, too, and every last prop and detail contained in them and connecting them together). I loved Wes Anderson’s follow-up to “Moonrise Kingdom”, another one of my favourite films, and wanted for it to win “Best Picture” so badly, albeit snapping up awards in other categories.

For the 88th Academy Awards, however, I’ve only seen one film since the start of 2015 that has made me feel the way I felt when I watched “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” was not that film. Neither was “Focus” (if it had stuck with where it was going for the first half, it would have been a tighter story, and thus a better film in my opinion).  Taking me by surprise was “Chappie” — and only taken by surprise because I had read the vile reviews on the once reputable film reviews aggregator site RottenTomatoes.Com prior to, and expected the film to be somewhat terrible. I walked out of the theatre feeling like my faith in the film industry was restored. C’mon– “The Interview”, “The Wedding Ringer”, “Fifty Shades of White” (sorry, but the demographics I’ve seen in that theatre are mostly grandmas), recycling fairy tales, comics (I agree with you, “Birdman”) and “Takens”, overdoing sequels — ANOTHER “Fast and the Furious”– really?

I sat in my seat waiting for that 15-20 minute mark to hit before the story unravelled and went downhill like most screenplays do these days due to the storyteller, who knows the heart of the story, competing with stubborn directors and creative-less producers whose only interest is money and making the most of it by watering down the story so much that it can appease every demographic in every country where it is shown. Fortunately for me, that mark never hit. In fact, the story became more and more engrossing — and relevant to recent times with chilling photographs and headlines of post-war weapons being passed on to militarised police in the US as well as scientists’ recent debates on what constitutes as consciousness, and if the brain is like a computer — could that mean we have found the key to immortality if we could transfer that data from host to host (body to body)? Have we then affirmed the soul is separate from the body as so many religions believe (as do I)?

To summarise the film, we have a weapons company producing law-enforcing robots for police squads in dangerous, dystopian Johannesburg. These lucrative robots were the invention of young engineer, Deon, who is a bit of a poster-child for the company, causing his older, jealous ex-soldier colleague Vincent to look out for any opportunity to ruin him and put his rejected tank on the market, ultimately putting himself on a pedestal in the spotlight. Deon, however, is more interested in making his robots feel and think. Having come up with the coding to do so, he is flat out rejected by his employer Michelle. Deon doesn’t give up. Confiscating a damaged robot set to be destroyed, planning to test his code for conscious artificial intelligence on what we will know as Chappie, Deon is hijacked by a group of anarchists in a bad position, who have resorted to threatening Deon to hand over control of the police bots to them. From here on out it is a battle between Deon and the anarchists for the ultimate influence over Chappie’s child-like mind, in addition to Vincent’s motive to destroy Deon’s career and Michelle’s frantic hunt for her company’s stolen property. It is up to Chappie to decide his fate. Good? Evil? Chappie goes far beyond these black and white choices, and goes so far as to discover life, death and what consciousness is in spite of his irreplaceable, diminishing battery. Why did this film get such LOW reviews on RottenTomatoes.com? Who are these people and how did they get jobs?

How did they rate “Big Hero 6″ its high ratings? I saw it. It was horrible. How did it get the score that it did, yet something so profound and engaging as “Chappie” get a fraction of the ratings for “Big Hero 6″? Disney’s movies are sub-par since Pixar split because Pixar recognises heart is at the centre of every story — that without a story, there is no film. “Big Hero 6″ didn’t even make sense. All I have to say is — these baddies have really weird and very complicated ways of getting otherwise, easy revenge, the protagonist is too cocky to feel for, his sidekicks lacked personalities and motives of any kind, the dialogue was awful, the long pauses utilised for comic effect weren’t effective, and the only character I liked died in a fire that really didn’t need to happen. Also, I felt “Big Hero 6″ lacked originality. It borrowed a lot of elements from other films, and I suspect even “Chappie” with the whole saving your identity on a flash drive / data disc / portable device/ and transferring it into a new body — which we see a lot in Hollywood. Two Snowwhite films at the same time? Two Ants-related films at the same time?

But alas, “Big Hero 6″ should have gotten the ratings “Chappie” has currently on RottenTomatoes.com, and “Chappie” deserves praise in all areas. Production design. Music (so fitting for its scenes, orchestral and not). The characters and their unique traits. The actors who could have failed these odd characters — really made these characters believable. I hated Vincent so much when he set out to destroy Deon’s career; I hated Ninja when he left Chappie to get beat up by the hoodlum kids. I loved innocent Chappie dearly, and his South African accent. I wanted Deon to be able to steer Chappie in the right direction against Ninja’s threats. I loved the grey area Yo-Landi occupied — a criminal nonetheless, yet someone with a good, nurturing heart. I loved the story. The dialogue. The humour. The myriad of emotions. The journey. I loved the philosophy behind it – so profound, and so prolific, too. Will we one day wake up in a world such as that portrayed in Chappie? Read the news. Google all those news articles about military weapons in the hands of your local police. Google all those debates about consciousness. Think about the sides fighting for Chappie. Are they all good? Bad? This film is so insightful, and made with so much care for every fibre of its being. I absolutely loved it.

Do not let the opinions of close-minded people put you off from seeing this film. I know cinema tickets are expensive, but if you are one of those people who are aware and enlightened by the world around you… if you’ve ever thought about what happens after death… wondered about where the future of the world is headed… wondered if humankind is born good or evil… have a little bit of a philosopher in you — this is the film for you. Years ago, when “The Fountain” came out, the box office did terribly — but the film, the film was sincerely one of the best ever made about life and death and how there is much more than the 9-5 existence we only see and experience.

The film industry is filled with empty-headed pictures with no merit to the human story. Most of the time, good stories are not given awards. What sells is “50 Shades” and “Twilight”. More films like “The Fountain” — like “Chappie”, please. I want to live in a world of enlightenment.