Neil Blompkamp's Chappie

[Octoberist]

Yeah you didn't get enough perspective from Jackman's character, who in theory isn't wrong. Isn't that point of Robocop; that he's human and was the best suited vs the ED-209?

I really don't see why Jackman had to be violent, just for the sake of being 'evil'. It felt like the script had to justify why he IS the bad guy vs. making him a little more..complex. Maybe he should've shown some regret. Something.

And his evilness never really came to that till the third act; otherwise he was just an insecured jerk.

BTW, I give the movie a C. It's slightly better than Elysium but yeah too many ideas, but nothing coherent enough to truly work. With Die Antrood, I actually liked the girl. I thought she did an admirable job. The guy's fine though, damn, he looks too old to be a band like this.

 

[Sithborg]

When the Moose ripped apart a guy, I was like "Whoa, were did that come from?". The third act just seems to be action for action's sake. Which has ruined a few sci-fi movies.

 

[Matt Mortem]

Yeah that moment with the Moose didn't fit the violence in the rest of the film.

 

[Elevator Man]

On Sunday afternoon I saw Chappie and thought it was overall disappointing, unfocused, with a bit of an identity crisis with the kind of movie it wanted to be. It was also cluttered with a bunch of ideas they could’ve explored in sequels instead of in one movie. Most of the characters were unlikable (especially Die Antwoord) and underdeveloped (Jackman and Weaver). A lot of things happened that was too convenient in order to move the plot along. And without giving anything away the last ten minutes of the movie completely dropped the ball for me. The movie needed a more polished and tighter script, imho. Overall so-so movie that could’ve been much better, imo.

Zimmer’s score was a nice throwback to some of the 80s sci-fi synth scores e.g. Vangelis’ Blade Runner. However just like with Inception, TDKR, and Interstellar, it was distracting and mixed very loud during certain scenes where it didn’t need to be. The score, imo, really shines during the film’s more dramatic moments with Chappie. I also think Blomkamp let Zimmer run a little too wild and should’ve had Zimmer restrain himself with the music. Overall what I noticed of the score in the film I thought it was a decent to good effort by Zimmer, but far from some of his best efforts, imo.

 

[Octoberist]

I swear, Weaver's last scene was grabbing her freakin' purse.

Why couldn't they end her arc with a press conference? It's so weird.

 

[Matt Mortem]

They way they opened the film, with the psuedo-documentary interview thing was also completely unnecessary. Those guys didn't really say anything of importance to the film.

 

[Octoberist]

It could've been just are FULL press conference with the police captain (instead of cutting it into a montage) and include Weaver in there to GIVE HER MORE TO DO.

 

[BatmanFanboy]

Blomkamp came up with the idea when he was doing Elysium, he was listening to a lot of Die Antwoord tracks, and he came up with this idea (I quote from the artbook): "All of a sudden I got this idea, for this robot -like the Elysium robots, it was a kind of police/security machine - being hijacked by this band that I was listening to. I don't know where the hell that idea came from, but that was the genesis for Chappie."

It's not a reason to bash Blomkamp by saying "what the hell was he thinking", he's the director, it's his concept, you either like it or you don't, but actually, putting blame on the guy for that, what?

Well his concept has earned him poor reviews, a financially disappointing film, and lost all his good-will from District 9. So yeah, it's good enough reason to bash him. The concept obviously flopped, and was a poor one.

 

[DeadPresident]

The more I hear about this the more disappointed I am this got green-lit. It sounds like one of those ideas you should discuss with your buddies but leave at that.

Before hearing about the film's composition I was definitely going to see it, now that I know how much screen time Die Antwoord have and how poorly told the story is I can't see any reason to support Blomkamp, as much as I'd like to. He should probably stick to directing for a while, he hit it out of the park with D9 but it's obvious he has some hare-brained ideas too.

 

[marty mcfly]

Saw it last night, absolutely loved it.

It's got a ton of problems, for sure. Most of the things I've been reading in this thread are true. I'm just happy that I still possess the ability to see a movie and still be entertained.

I think too many people go into these movies with unachieveable expectations. Not every movie has to be about something deep and meaningful, and have layers that can be dissected days later. District 9 had those, for sure. It remains Blomkamp's best film. But Chappie has heart, it's sweet, funny, sad, action-packed and I'm itching to go see it again.

The way I see it, Spielberg directed Schindler's List, but he also directed Hook. Both are great movies (I still LOVE Hook), but clearly one of them is more significant in terms of its artistry and social significance. I'm not comparing Blomkamp to Spielberg, I'm just saying that not every film is going to be high art.

As a filmmaker, I DO appreciate the thought-provoking and highly artistic films more than cash-grab summer blockbusters. But hey, I like those too!

 

[Octoberist]

No one is asking for high art. And people like subtext in ther movies.

People don't like half baked execution, even if they consciously can't tell you.

 

[BlackFox]

Thought it was ok at best, some good moments spoiled by some pretty bad head scratching ones. A little unsure of what it wanted to be and tonally all over the shop. Some characters seemed to have zero purpose for existing in the film but Copley was really good as the lead at least.

Not sure if I liked it more than Elysium or less in the end, the second half of the film really did start to lose itself and became a little predictable.

First real let down of the year.

 

[Octoberist]

This made me cringe. At 4:45:

"The written word & scripts & literature & stuff is like, that's about as boring as it can get for me. The idea of a theatrical play? That is literally the most boring thing in the world for me."

[YT]uEgEjuR9rJQ[/YT]

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

Yeah that's a man who shouldn't be writing any of his films...

 

[Snow Queen]

Yeah, the guy is a fantastic visual director and sure knows how to get great visual effects...but someone else needs to write his scripts for him.

 

[Octoberist]

It's just so upsetting that he would say such a thing. The written word bores him?

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

It is very upsetting, It makes me shudder.

 

[Snow Queen]

Not the most confidence-inspiring line for Alien 3 2.0.

 

[titansupes]

As someone who loves reading and writing, and someone who's greatly anticipating the next Alien movie... That is ****ing terrible. Hire a writer then!

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Saw it tonight, as a big fan of Blomkamp ( I liked Elysium and D9 is one of my favourite movies ever) I was quite disappointed. Ninja was possible one of the most annoying characters ever created, and apparently he was just playing himself, so the guy should never be in a movie again. The girl wasn't to bad and at least garnered some sympathy, Jackman's character didn't really have a motivation and just turned into a violent psycho at the end .

Chappie was likeable and so props to Copley for that who gave a really good performance and created the best character in the movie. The tone was just all over the show and the movie just couldn't seem to figure out what it was. 6/10, can we have D9 Blomkamp back please? I haven't lost total faith in the guy yet as even this movie had some good ideas but he needs to get back on track for the next Alien movie.

 

[Drizzle]

I liked the film, it was a mashup of Short Circuit and Robocop with a bit of District 9 in there. But holy hell, do I wish they got real actors to play "Mommy" and "Daddy". They got on my nerves so many times during the film.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Mommy wasn't to bad, but Daddy is one of the most annoying characters I have seen in a movie, and he was supposedly just playing himself so I would hate to meet the guy in real life.

 

[dark_b]

decent. 6/10 or 7/10. i had extreme low expectations because i was disappointed with Elysium. if this movie was realesed 2 years after D9 it would be destroyed in the reviews and on superhero/scifi forums. in the next 6 months someone will make a video similar to this . D9 and Chappie are even more similar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-agQxcUlU10

D9 was sooo good that i give Neil another chance. he has to be the new good scifi director.


yeah yeah i watched Jupiter Ascending and i liked the scifi world and action. dont you dare bringing it up.

 

[Maximus One]

I actually love this movie. I think people are forgetting it was intended as a dark comedy at first then kinda got lost in all this sci-fi action. The story could have been a little more substantive but man, I love this movie. I hated Ninja at first but he really ends up growing on you and oh lordy, I seriously have a thing for Yolandi. Too bad their music sucks so horribly but, they aren't bad actors at all. Especially Yolandi, I'd love to see her career get bigger and bigger. Also, I liked Elyisum but, this is 100 times better. I seriously don't get a lot of the complaints about this. It's the as great as D9 at all but it's still a damn good movie, in my opinion.

 

[Lord]

This was Blomkamp's weakest film so far, while Elysium was incredibly flawed, i think it worked a little better than this. I think he might have focused on the wrong elements here.

Would like to see his take on a Transformers film though, more so than Alien, the bar for TF is pretty low and i believe Blomkamp's style would fit well, while it didn't work as well as it should have, he did show he could work well with a robot main character and give it some personality.

Btw, Chappie felt like District 9 even more than Elysium, even the plot beats were almost the same.

I give it a 4/10, it was weak but it was a nice try, some bits were entertaining.