Review by james-allen72

I usually consider myself a "fanboi" and find that every movie is my "new favorite thing"-so much that I often find myself wondering if I've lost the ability to be critical of a movie. I especially love movies about near-future A.I. law enforcement (I LOVED the "Robocop" reboot). But then I saw "Chappie". The premise is right up my alley, and I thought I was in for a helluva ride until the completely over-the- top bad guys hijack the nerd who has just stolen a "scout" droid with the purpose of trying his newly-developed A.I. system on it. Everything to this point is pretty tight-right down to Sigourney Weaver's character's reluctance to allow Deon to just try the A.I. on the droid. When the bad guys let Deon go (WHAT?), seemingly unconcerned with whether he would report them to the police, my own logic filled in the hole by reasoning that Deon would not want the police to find the robot that he had stolen and left there with them.

But then the rest of the movie was one hole after another and by the time the movie was over, I found myself more exhausted than entertained, having to constantly square the circles, using my own reasoning rather than just enjoy a well-written story. The worst part was that I kept getting the sense that I was supposed to really feel badly for Chappie; that I was supposed to somehow view him as a child and when he found himself in peril or was hurt, I was supposed to feel as I would when watching it happen to a child or perhaps an innocent animal. Don't get me wrong- I am extremely empathetic-probably too much so: I still SOB every time I watch "Powder" and I cried all the way through to the end of the credits of the movie, "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence". But I just was not getting anything from Chappie. His "gangsta" posturing wasn't "cute" to me and I did not relate to him on any fundamental level. I found it ridiculous when his arm was sawed off, the humans muttering, "That'll teach him" (or something to that effect) because well, he's a freaking ROBOT! They don't have nerve endings with which to feel pain! Someone should explain that to the guys who are trying to inflict physical pain on a MACHINE!

Ah well, I could go on, but I think that by now, anyone reading probably gets the point. If you're older than six and have an I.Q. above 90, save yourself two hours of your time and go watch something with some substance and entertainment quality. If you've got a hankerin' for some Sigourney Weaver, there's four or five movies I could recommend, at least four of which take place in space and are, at worst pretty good action flicks. If you just need to see Hugh Jackman in something besides an "X-Men" movie, well, there's "Australia" and a couple others. If you're hoping for something that explores the minutiae of concerns to be had when truly considering whether or not we "should" continue to develop artificial intelligence, or if we should toss those concerns out the window to focus on whether we have the ability, try "Ex-Machina". But really, if you want to watch a movie that explores the possible pitfalls of a sentient law- enforcement robot-one with a little humor and lot of action, either of the iterations of "Robocop" is far and away better than this, which only got a second star from me because of the visuals.