The story revolves around a computer sciences geek Deon Wilson (played by Dev Patel, he of Slumdog Millionaire, The Newsroom and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel fame) who creates an Artificial Intelligence program to help his robots achieve a level of human consciousness. His place of employment has already used his technology to build robots that the police use to enforce the law in Johannesburg. Upper management is opposed to this, so he goes rogue to complete the task. This is when the story takes a rather large detour into ridiculousness.

Wilson is kidnapped by a group of hip-hop thugs lead by Ninja (Watkin Tudor Jones, a real life South African rapper, record producer and actor) who terrorizes Wilson but also helps him insert his AI program into a decommissioned robot. Once the program is installed, the robot essentially becomes a child and is taught the ways of life by both Wilson and the thugs. There are some interesting comments on nurture verses nature as the robot become more and more human.

The big finale borrows a bit too liberally from the film Robocop and the final end run takes science to unbelievable places. There are too many moments in the film that illustrate that working more diligently on the logic loop holes in the script would have helped immensely. The film errs on the side of big dumb entertainment, which is a bit of a shame as some of the ideas really showed promise. As it is, it’s entertaining but not much of a mental exercise. With Blomkamp’s stated intension of this being part one of a trilogy, here is hoping they work a little more believability into parts two and three.
Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/ChappieMovie

Big Hero 6 is all just a bit ‘kiddie’ and twee compared to its contemporaries. Yes, this is a kid’s movie but after all the intergenerational ‘kids’ movies we’ve had from Pixar and others, a plain ol’ kids movie barely cuts it anymore. The beauty of intergenerational children’s films is not just that they entertain the kid’s parents but that children will find them enriching as they get older and the adult themes open up to them. Pixar’s Up being the prime example thus far. So there are few reasons not to do it.

The other issue with Big Hero 6 is that it follows what are probably the story’s least interesting characters. Baymax is a benign creature with a benign personality, not a great start for creating a character of interest. Sure, he’s kind of cute, but that wears thin quickly. And Hiro (our hero) is an off-the-rails orphaned youth with authority issues who, after the death of his brother, finds direction in his life. It’s an oft-used narrative that adds little to a well-traipsed formula beside said benign robot.

The female characters in it, however, GoGo and Honey Lemon, are both more interesting characters and perhaps the film would have benefited from revealing more of their back-stories. Given that Big Hero 6 is clearly the origins of a new franchise, there is scope to explore these characters further and so maybe future films can build positively on this foundation.

The short film, Feast, which precedes the feature, however, is a masterpiece, following the ups and downs of a human relationship from the perspective of the family pet. It’s full of heart, truth and will quite possibly make you cry. Just brilliant. Perhaps the strength of the short undermines the weakness of the feature.

Stuart Jamieson
www.movietimes.com.au/Movie/Big-Hero-6