Review of Chappie (2015) by Arcangel_Loki — 02 Dec 2015

I consider a movie to be a 10 when I do not want to stop watching. Chappie is without equal in my opinion, which makes the critic's negative reviews just mind-blowing. It was fun, entertaining, heartbreaking, hopeful, and surprisingly realistic; pretty much everything you could ever want from a movie. I am certainly not a fan of Die Antwoord, but I feel like their portrayal of the slightly dim-witted, but seasoned Johannesburg gangsters in the near future, was pretty spot on. Yolandi and Ninja step into their roles flawlessly with the former naturally taking on a caretaker role and the latter being the one-track-mind gangster that sees Chappie only as a tool for survival.

The depiction of Chappie as a brand new consciousness in a fully functional, nearly-indestructible body, is as real as it gets from my point of view. The fact that humans and animals alike have to sacrifice all manner of brain power for physical development (and vice versa) makes the way that Blomkamp conceptualized Chappie's development seem much more likely. The movie also did a spectacular job with the most important theme of all, which is the notion of free will. Morality, love, hatred, and other similar ideas do not exist without real choice.

If you have seen 100 other movies this year, Chappie should probably be a solid 7/10 rating and at least in the top 20. If you do not watch movies very often or have no idea what a "Blomkamp" is then this movie should probably warrant at least a 9/10. Throw in Hugh Jackman "the guy from DARPA with a semi-mullet" and Sigourney Weaver "the tough,angry boss-lady who's too smart to give a weaponized robot sentience" and this movie comes out on par or above Elysium, Robocop, or any other movies that at least a dozen critics decided to compare it to.