Chappie is the new sci-fi film set int he far flung future of 2016 about a series of robot cops (no, not Robocops) that have been dispatched to the streets of Johanesburg to fight crime. One of the robots gains consciousness and the film revolves around him (Chappie), some criminals, his maker, and other stuff.

I liked this movie quite a bit – more than I expected – but it has a big disappointing issue in that it’s just about stuff. It wants to be about sentience/consciousness and some of that’s there but it really doesn’t explore it well… it’s no exploration of free will, humanity, the danger of AI, and religion. But despite the fact it didn’t seem to have as much going on as it thinks it does, I still rather enjoyed the film. If it had a tighter scripts or spent more time on its themes, this could have been a great film.

Think of the movie as what would happen if Johnny 5 gained sentience and wasn’t found by a sweet and charming Allie Sheedy but by a trio of ignorant, idiotic thugs who proceed to try to teach him to fire guns (sideways, of course), walk like a gangster, commit crimes, etc. All of this stuff is possibly unintentionally funny – these thugs are really stupid. But a weird thing happens by the end of the film – these dummies (Ninja, Yolandi, and America) who spend the whole movie corrupting a child-like mind (Chappie) gain some extra dimensions by realizing they were treating the robot poorly. I wound up liking them. I was surprised and I can’t defend the position.

I think I might be alone in this, but I came away enjoying the film. This is the third movie Neil Blomkamp who also made the good District 9 and the dumb-as-hell Elysium and this one, in my book, is closer to District 9. He’s apparently on track to direct the next Alien film and I think he can pull it off after this and District 9 as long as he can wrangle the script better than he did here and in Elysium.

Score: 86