Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie features Sharlto Copley as a robot orphan

Expect more realism and grit from this robot flick. Photo: Sony Pictures

The thing about robots in science fiction, especially recently, is that they’re often portrayed as living in a clean, distant future.

The brilliance of Neill Blomkamp is his gritty, dirty, realistic portrayal of the future, and he’s bringing us a new robot to live there, named Chappie.

Chappie, motion captured by Blomkamp favorite Sharlto Copley, is a gifted young robot, an artistic and emotional prodigy. In the trailer below, you can see how much of the real world Blomkamp sets around Chappie: He-Man on the television, a wristwatch on the main propellerhead kid that befriends the robot, and a variety of militaristic types trying to blow up the special kid.

Neill Blomkamp is the auteur director that brought us the brilliant District 9 and the big-budget visual feast of Elysium, making this a film to anticipate for sure.

Besides Copley, the film stars Hugh Jackman (The Wolverine), Dev Patel (Slum Dog Millionaire), and even Sigourney Weaver (Alien) in an unnamed role. This is likely to be film more along the lines of District 9 than Elysium, with a smaller-budget look and a focus on a tighter, more focused storyline.

Here’s what distributor Sony Pictures has to say about Chappie:

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.

Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, Chappie will show up in theaters in March of 2015.