My wonderful boyfriend went and saw Chappie a few weeks ago and insisted I go see it. He exclaimed in eager and delight how hilarious, well written, and perfectly cast the movie was. Because of his enthusiasm, I was very excited to see it myself. However, the movie fell short for me. It was poorly constructed and incredibly slow in most parts. I found myself rolling my eyes more than I was laughing, and I was more than tempted to just leave. Despite my disinterest in the movie I decided to stick it out to the end, which then proceeded to be the worst part of the movie. Chappie is about unbearable crime rates in Johannesburg, South Africa. Because of a lack of competency within human police forces, an engineer Deon Wilson created the Scouts. Robots with enough Artificial Intelligence to be able to fight crime in the most effective of ways. Partway through the movie, Deon finally cracks the code and creates full artificial intelligence. He now has the power to give a robot feelings and it’s own personality. He places this AI into a Scout due to be crushed, and it is a successful test. Although this is Deon’s latest creation, the robot is under the authority of a bunch of gang members getting ready for a heist. They proceed to train the robot, called Chappie, to be a thug and criminal.
The logic was fabulously flawed in this movie when they decided to put two human beings’ ‘consciousnesses’ into robot bodies, as though our souls could be codes like those in a computer. The only codes we have in our bodies are our DNA codes, and those have nothing to do with anything but physical appearance. In addition to that, a person’s personality, or essence for lack of a better word, could never be something copy-able in any version of reality, ever. ALSO, they were reading and copying their consciousnesses with a Neural Helmet used to control a bigger robot called “The Moose.” The movie neglected to explain how that would even be possible. The helmet was made to read a person’s brain by being placed on their head, yet somehow when Chappie places the helmet on his own head, he successfully codes his consciousness. I also was not a huge fan of the violent deaths throughout the movie. I found myself uneasy in the worst type of way when one of the only characters I liked was literally ripped in half.
I simply did not like this movie. If I were to rate it, I would generously give it a 3 out of 10.
If you prefer logical, accurate, and actually funny movies, Chappie is not for you.
annamaesday 