CHAPPIE

"A thinking robot could be the end of mankind..."

          This movie turned out to be more entertaining than I'd thought. But on the other hand, the drama was less impactful than I'd initially expect. There were some exciting & funny moments, but it never really took me in. A good time in the theaters, is all.

          I never really got into the film...not until I find out that a kid robot acting like a gangster can be funny. It's the element that surprised me yet entertained me...how this robot Chappie is brought up by a family of gangsters, and grows up to that unlike of any Artificial Intelligence ever seen before. It's funny, it's entertaining...and is probably the only reason for me to like Chappie (the robot).

          But the drama never really hit hard. Perhaps because the events happening towards the end is a little messy, and it tried to send several different moral messages to the audience, ending up with none. It tried too hard, basically. And then I have a little bit of a problem with the resolution at the end. I won't spoil it here...but I disapprove the ending, if not for one sweet moment. (I'll put a short spoiler discussion below...).

          And there was the problem of Hugh Jackman & Sigourney Weaver. Two great actors - slash - marketing material, whose characters never really integrated to the film. They were lost for a lot of the middle portion of the film, and never really looked like properly layered characters. But the gangster family (portrayed by Die Antwoord band members) and Chappie himself prove themselves the star of the show. And just as a side note, Hans Zimmer is a genius - even when the movie is less than brilliant, his music always is (brilliant).

VERDICT:

Good: Entertaining moments, Decent main actors (& characters), Great music.

Bad: Less dramatic, Messy resolution.

SCORE: 6.5

### SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!! ###### SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!! ###

          Now, about the resolution of the story: Not only did the drama fail because both Deon & Chappie survives...but it's also a bit far-fetched for consciousness (of a robot) to be transferred. My first initial perception was way more dramatic: that despite Chappie's software to be able to be copied....the consciousness that develop out of it could not (and is not) written in computer codes...so I thought a new Chappie could be built...but the old life would be gone. That would have been awesome, right?

          Furthermore, I could understand and accept for Deon (a human) to be able to have his consciousness transferred. But Chappie? A robot? He didn't even have neural sensors or something. My, that really disappoints me when I saw it happen on screen. The only sweet moment, which I mentioned above, is that it leads to the revelation that Chappie at one point downloaded Yo-landi's consciousness...so that was a nice & touching moment, but that's about it. I was very disappointed with how the other parts of the ending transpired.