After breaking out with District 9, Neill Blomkamp expanded his scope with Elysium, a big-budget sci-fi feature that, while technically proficient, bit off more than it could chew with heavy-handed pandering and stock characters. Despite the general disappointment of his sophomore effort, Sony stayed with the director for his next feature and ahead of a release next year, we have the first trailer.
Once again adapting one of his earlier shorts, Chappie tells the story of a robot imbued with artificial intelligence who is stolen by two local gangsters who want to use him for their own nefarious purposes. With Sharlto Copley taking the lead role of our robot, performed through motion-capture, Ninja and Yolandi Visser and Die Antwoord as the two gangsters, the cast also includes Dev Patel, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, and Hugh Jackman. Check out the trailer below via EW along with 2003 short the film’s based on, Tetra Vaal.
Every child comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come under the influence of his surroundings – some good, some bad – and he will rely on his heart and soul to find his way in the world and become his own man. But there’s one thing that makes Chappie different from anyone else: he is a robot. The first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself. His life, his story, will change the way the world looks at robots and humans forever.
Chappie opens on March 27th, 2015.