*MINOR SPOILERS*
This was almost my Movie of the Year for 2015. Although it was good, I’m definitely glad I went with The Martian instead. Now onto the review!
Chappie is a 2015 action/drama film directed by Neill Blomkamp. The film stars Dev Patel, Sigourney Weaver, and Hugh Jackman who live in the near future where crime is patrolled by a mechanized police force. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself.
So Chappie was an interesting film to review this week. The last half hour of this film was so fantastic that I almost forgot about the first half, which wasn’t so amazing. This movie gave me a little bit of a mixed feeling after watching it because of that. The movie took off from the start literally throwing information at the audience. This was pretty confusing at the start, but by the end of the first act I was totally immersed in this film. I don’t know what it was that made me not like the opening of this film, but I would contribute it to the film’s cross cutting as well as the acting. The cross cutting made this film feel very choppy at first, and I was afraid the film would continue like this past the first half of the first act. It almost seems like Neill Blomkamp cut a lot of time out of the first half of the movie to save screen time, but I would have honestly enjoyed a longer version without the cross cuts. Also the acting in the first part of this film is pretty bad. I don’t know why, but Dev Patel was just not into it at the beginning of this film. Towards the middle and end he was amazing, but something about the first part in this film makes you almost want to turn it off.
That being said, there was a lot of really good stuff in this movie. The visuals were fantastic, and the puppeteering – don’t know if there was any, but if there was – it was fantastic. The character of Chappie had me 100% immersed in that character, and when he hurts, you hurt. You ultimately feel for this character more than anyone else in this film. He has a sense of innocence and ignorance which makes you sympathize for him in a way you don’t for any other character. The acting in this film was very on and off. There were times when you really hated the actors more than the characters, and times were the actors were just doing a very bad job at acting. Like I said before, it was a mixed bag.
There wasn’t a whole lot I profoundly disliked. The actors were sometimes just not good, the pacing in the beginning was too fast, and so forth. Other than my main complaints there wasn’t much more that I disliked about the film. The film had an awesome soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, and it reminded me a lot of Oblivion at times. The visuals were good, the sound was alright (don’t know enough about sound to comment), everything was just good. This movie also has some deeper meaning about humanity that really push this movie forward. There was a scene were Dev Patel’s character is telling Chappie that he is going to die very soon. This is such a huge parallel between God and man that it is almost romantic in a sense. We also see a lot of deception and manipulation throughout the film, and those moral dilemmas ultimately show the disgusting nature of humans and humanity as a whole. This movie very much reminded me of Blade Runner, and I’ll give Chappie props for giving us some really deep messages about humanity and the human race as a whole.
For a more spoilery section of the review I wanted to talk about the ending real quick. I won’t spoil anything directly, just the ideas that took place in the last half hour of the film. So skip if you must, but it shouldn’t spoil anything for you. So ending.. It was fantastic, yet bland in a way. The final fight scene (not between the gang) was awesome and I was literally cheering as the plot progressed. The end fight scene was awesome, and will probably be remembered as one of my favorite fight scenes of all time. You ultimately find yourself cheering for the protagonist in this film all the way to the end, and it is just a very satisfying scene in the end. Yet even with all that the actual ending of this film was just alright. It’s not that it was drawn out, it’s just that it feels unnecessary. The film throws you a little twist towards the end, and it really doesn’t have that big of an impact on the audience. Like I said, it’s not bad it just feels unnecessary.
So in the end, Chappie was a good film with some minor flaws, but its story and deep concepts ultimately saves it from utter destruction. The fast paced opener and mediocre acting definitely keep this film from a “Very Good”, but in the end I decided to give Chappie a “Good” on theVade Review Bar. This was a film I really wanted to be better, but ultimately failed where you really didn’t want it to. So with that I guess this film made the correct decision on its name since Chappie is the best part about Chappie.
