“Chappie” is an uneven movie with a mix of solid characters and a few strangely idiotic ones. The title character is a police robot who gains artificial intelligence. Unfortunatly he has to start out with the mind of a child and basically learn and grow. His appearence is a mix of Johnny 5 and a skinless Terminator.
The director is Neil Blomkamp who is coming off of the entertaining “District 9” and the awesome “Elysium”. This time his story is very uneven. There is a poltical backdrop about a robot police force which is similar to “Robocop”. The main story follows Chappie as he is essentially raised by idiotic gangsters. Hugh Jackman plays a bafoonish bad guy who seems put in to the story simply to have a menacing antagonist.
I am not sure where the real failiure of this film lies. It just seems to be a mess. There are a lot of plot lines that do not fit together very well and a needlessly violent ending where unappealing robots battle it out in a mess of metal and screws. This movie is just no where near as good as Blomkamp’s first two films. I am still stoked about his “Alien” movie though!
Leslie Adams At The Movies 