Chappie (2015, Neill Blomkamp)

[tbeasley]

Elysium was quite a letdown for me so I wasn't that excited for Chappie. But when it was announced Blomkamp was taking on the next Alien film I figured why not... and I'm glad I did. I quite enjoyed Chappie. In a lot of ways I find it a stronger film than even District 9 (which I wasn't entirely crazy about to be honest - but I do find it far more satisfying than Elysium). Anyway, I think Blomkamp has really found himself with Chappie. You'll recognize a lot of the ideas and designs he's played with before, but he tells this story in a more confident, coherent (well, mostly coherent) way.

[jellydonut25]

This is kinda the first positive thing I've seen about this movie. It's getting shredded in most reviews.

[kiryugoji04]

The positive reviews I've seen for it have been pretty strong. Seems like it's a movie that really does a lot for a fairly small audience.

[GFan]

My wife and I really enjoyed CHAPPIE. The ending went in a different direction than I was expecting, but I'm a huge SHORT CIRCUIT fan (loved DISTRICT 9 and enjoyed ELYSIUM), so the movie for us was easy to like.

[Rodanex]

I wasn't very impressed with Chappie. Neil Blomkamp seems like a one trick pony to me...all his films feel the same to me and the guy doesn't seem to understand how to say anything with any subtlety. This movie is kind of all over the place and doesn't seem like it really knows what it wants to be or what it wants to say. There are some parts that work well, but overall the film felt disappointing. Like many have pointed out, there are a lot of similarities to RoboCop and Short Circuit. The "Moose" looks just like ED-209; even the dynamic between Vincent and Deon was similar to that between Dick Jones and Bob Morton.

I liked Chappie better than Elysium...at least there wasn't an overly obvious message being bashed into your skull, but I don't really know what this film is even trying to communicate.

[jellydonut25]

District 9 is pretty subtle. It's just that it's a layered film, so there are things and messages within it that are obvious, but there are subtleties that most people just overlook.

He's CAPABLE of subtlety, but...he recently said something in an interview to the effect of "I don't know if I'm cut out for this [directing feature-length films]. It's a lot of work. When things come together it's great but the effort to do so is enormous." It seems like District 9 was just something he was REALLY passionate about and so he was meticulous and put it together as expertly as possible but hasn't necessarily taken the same care and effort to do so with his next films. Hopefully, he can find that passion again because he's doing the next Alien film...

[Rodanex]

[Gargantuan Gargantua]

I found Hugh Jackmans character to be amazing and deserves kudos.

Blomkamp maybe should take a seat to the producer section and let someone else direct maybe.

[jellydonut25]

For maybe 90 minutes, maybe a little less than that, I was watching this film, and kept thinking "I can definitely see some problems, and one fairly sizable lapse in internal logic, but this is WAY better than I'd been led to believe"

And then the third act happened.

The number of characters whose (for lack of a better word) character changes completely is frankly astounding. Characters go off the deep-end, others suddenly change who they are, a CEO of a major corporations listen to hearsay as a determining factor for making MAJOR decisions, and it feels crammed and rushed. There are some things about that I think work in its favor (specifically the rushed part, I mean, if all this stupidity is going to be happening, whisk it by me so I can at least get swept up in the moment and care less about logic and more about the urgency of the situation) but upon reflection and examination, this thing crumbles to pieces.

I enjoyed the ride, and I think I personally ENJOYED it more than Elysium (I actually like Elysium, but its message is so ham-fisted and blatantly obvious, it kinda gets in the way of letting it be a fun sci-fi romp), but it's Blomkamp's objectively weakest film to date. I think he's too good a director to make something wholly without merit, but he's losing himself. District 9 had this excellent mix of message and action and story, he's been unable to recapture that, and he's starting to just use old storytelling tropes from District 9 to try to cover up how messy the movie is. I think it's actually a shame he's signed on for something else so quickly. I think some time AWAY is what this guy needs to get his head screwed back on straight, but MAYBE with it being a pre-existing property, he'll struggle less with reigning himself in and finding focus. I hope. Because if he gives us an Alien film as much of a complete mess as the third act of Chappie, it won't just be a film that people forget even exists; it'll probably put an end to his Hollywood career.