There are films that end up in oblivion and others that, like a good wine, improve with time. I may be biased, because I love Neil blomkamp, but for me Humandroid (the international title is “Chappie”) definitely belongs to the second category, even if nobody would have imagined it ten years ago.
I remember well the release of this third film by the Canadian-South African director: I had sky-high expectations after the success of District 9. I liked it a lot, but it received lukewarm reviews and was a major commercial flop. It seemed doomed to irrelevance. Yet, in an age where artificial intelligence is no longer just science fiction but everyday reality, rewatching this strange hybrid RoboCop, Short Circuit and other it has a strange effect.
As if Blomkamp, among the many narrative imperfections, had intuited something important about our relationship with thinking machines. Something that today, immersed up to the neck in conversations about the dangers and opportunities of AI, resonates in a surprisingly prophetic way.
An imperfect but sincere blend
Humandroid is clearly divided into two worlds: the “corporate” one with Dev patel, Hugh Jackman e Sigourney Weaver who play at being unscrupulous tech executives, and the more colorful and rambling one of the criminals played by Ninja e Yolandi visser of Die Antwoord. In the middle there is Chappie, an artificial intelligence that bounces between these two universes trying to understand what it means to be alive.
It is precisely this division that creates the film's biggest problems. The clashing tones, the ideas piled on top of each other without time to develop them, the narrative leaps... and yet, paradoxically, it is also what makes Humandroid so damn human (if you'll pardon the pun). Unlike other films about artificial intelligence, technically impeccable but emotionally cold, this Blomkamp mess had a beating heart that beats strongly.
Well, this film, criticized for being a hodgepodge of influences, today appears more interesting and prophetic than many of its more “original” contemporaries.
Humanity is in the flaws
The real miracle of Humandroid is that, despite all its flaws (or perhaps because of them), it manages to ask profound questions about the nature of consciousness. I find the sequence in which Chappie discovers that he will die one day genuinely heartbreaking: for me, it is one of the most effective ways in which cinema has approached the idea of a machine becoming aware of its own mortality.
In 2015 these reflections could seem like abstract philosophical speculations. I myself still contemplated it as a work with a strong poetic imprint, ultimately a fairy tale. And yet in 2025, with artificial intelligence permeating every aspect of our daily lives, take on a much more concrete and urgent dimension. How far are our generative AIs from having some form of consciousness? And how would we behave if (or when, for someone) were to develop it?
I particularly like how Humandroid explored the theme of “found family.” Chappie learns what it means to be human not in a sterile laboratory, but in a den of dysfunctional criminals. An idea that seems to suggest that humanity is not a lofty and noble concept, but something dirty, contradictory and deeply flawed.
The emotional heart of the film is contained in that scene where Chappie asks Ninja why humans are so cruel. A simple question that contains all the moral complexity of human existence, and that ten years later continues to resonate with force. After all, isn't this the question that, sooner or later, every artificial intelligence would end up asking us?
Humandroid, the value of imperfection
What makes Humandroid so startlingly relevant today? Perhaps the fact that, unlike much more “serious” science fiction, it isn’t afraid to be messy, incoherent, even at times ridiculous. Just like real life, just like the human experience.
Today we talk about AI aligning with human values, but the film reminds us that these values are far from consistent or universal. In a world of algorithms designed to be efficient and logical, Chappie reminds us of the value of imperfection, of unpredictability, of emotion.
Watch it again, Humandroid. For its 10th birthday, give Chappie a second chance. It's not a masterpiece, it's not perfect, but it's sincere. And in an age of increasingly sophisticated algorithms and artificial intelligence, sincerity is the most human trait we can still claim.
