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[megamerican]

I have to say I really, really hope this doesn't kill Blomkamp's career. Dude has serious talent, even if its not necessarily in the writing department. He's also one of the only people out there getting hard R sci-fi made.

But this Chappie thing seemed like a bad move from the start. An adult version of Short Circuit set in South Africa starring Die Antwoord? What the fuck was he thinking?

 

[tringworldso]

This guy should not write. I highly enjoy his directing style but the scripts bring his projects down so much.

Ikr... some directors should just stick to directing and leave scripting duties to other people. Nicolas Winding Refn is another example.

 

[Draconian]

Four

Village
Signs
Unbreakable
Sixth Sense

Where's this planet you come from where The Village is a good movie? I'd like to visit sometime.

 

[MattKeil]

Four

Village
Signs
Unbreakable
Sixth Sense

I'll maybe give you 2 1/2 by including the parts of Signs that don't suck, but The Village? Nuh-uh. Definitely the movie where all the red flags went up fully for the first time.

 

[Technosteve]

Still going to see it, for yolandy alone

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

I'll maybe give you 2 1/2 by including the parts of Signs that don't suck, but The Village? Nuh-uh. Definitely the movie where all the red flags went up fully for the first time.

Signs is awesome.

The Village does indeed suck, though. Great score however.

 

[Delta Assault]

I'll maybe give you 2 1/2 by including the parts of Signs that don't suck, but The Village? Nuh-uh. Definitely the movie where all the red flags went up fully for the first time.

That would've been an amazing movie too if he'd just ditched the twist ending and stuck to following that initial trailer. Remember when that thing came out, with its amazing Stephen King atmosphere? People in the theater loved that fucking Village trailer.

 

[DVCY201]

I loved District 9 and liked Elysium. It's still a downward trend if this is any indication, but I'm not quite ready to write off Blomkamp yet. I hope Alien turns out amazing though.

 

[Discotheque]

Did you really just go from "lol Blomkamp won't make 3 good films in his entire career" to "I've disagreed with RT before. It might be good" over the course of one page in this thread?

i'm saying anything is a possibility (like this film being decent despite it's reviews) but i doubt it.

 

[Toa TAK]

Blomkamp would have made a shit HALO film. His style really never struck me as suiting that universe and the shorts only confirmed that for me.

Thank God I'm not the only one who feels this way.

 

[megamerican]

Ikr... some directors should just stick to directing and leave scripting duties to other people. Nicolas Winding Refn is another example.

Shit, people hate Only God Forgives so much that they forget Pusher 1-3, Bleeder, Bronson, and Drive?

Spoiler

I agree that he's better when he's not so up his own ass though

 

[nhlducks35]

The strength of District 9 is that it toed close to the documentary style and because the aliens couldn't say things in English, it forced Blomkamp to consider how to convey a story efficiently and logically.

For a more conventional style of film, I get the impression Blomkamp is still too inexperienced (amateurish) in the plotting and dialog department.

His wife wrote the screenplay for District 9

Blomkamp wrote the one for Elysium

 

[MattKeil]

Signs is awesome.

It would be, if the entire brainless main theme of the film wasn't ineptly handled to the point that it makes God seem like a complete idiot. It's a very tightly directed film up until the last five minutes, when it's revealed that Shyamalan has no fucking idea what he's doing.

Signs:religion/spirituality::The Happening:science

 

[Metroidvania]

Saw the writing on the wall with the previews.

Between Short Circuit already doing it, and not really feeling the 'emotional' attachment angle that's being played up, I do wonder what emotion/vision Blomkamp is striving for with the integration of tech and its role on the world as we move towards the future.

He definitely didn't hit it correctly in Elysium, and apparently not here either.

Too bad, district 9 was interesting.

 

[BobLoblaw]

Trailer looked like shit, so I'm not surprised. One more bomb and I think this guy may be on his way out.

 

[PantherLotus]

I actually thought the trailer for this is compelling as HELL.

 

[RagnarokX]

Well, at least his next Alien movie can't be any worse that Prometheus.

Well, what if his Alien movie is an interquel about the oppression of android minorities by Weyland-Yutani?

 

[Nazgul11]

I just got back from seeing an advance screening of this.

It was definitely a mess, but I thought it was better than Elysium.

Chappie is a very unfocused film. It deals with a number of different ideas, feelings and themes but doesn't seem to commit to any one of them, at least tonally (unlike the way District 9 did by the end). At one point in the film

Spoiler

Dev Patel is literally uploading a file called CONSCIOUSNESS.DAT.

I did enjoy it though. The film has heart. It's very punk sci-fi. It really does seem like the pitch was something along the lines of "What if Die Antwoord raised a robot?"

At this point I have no idea what to expect from a Neill Blomkamp directed Alien film, but I can't say I'm not super curious.

P.S. The highlight was definitely when

Spoiler

Chappie used a cluster of PS4s to understand consciousness. I died.

 

[harSon]

It soared up to 40% ya'll

 

[megamerican]

It soared up to 40% ya'll

Yeah I saw that but it looks like they counted the Time Out guy's review twice.

 

[AdventureRacing]

When I first heard about the concept I was worried he wouldn't pull it off. After the trailers though I thought it looked pretty interesting.

Either way I'm not writing him off. D9 was awesome, Elysium was average but I still enjoyed it. Sure this would be 1 from 3 but there is still promise there. I like his visual style and the way he handles action, his usage of cgi is top notch. I like that he allows his actirs to use different accents as well, it gives his movies a unique feel.

I also think some of the ideas he attempts to portray are pretty cool. He just needs to get a good writer to really iron things out for him.

The fact that his movies tend to be similar in ideas and how they're shot doesn't bother me at all.

Anyway still looking forward to watching it, not expecting a masterpiece but I think it will still be fun on the big screen.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

When I first heard about the concept I was worried he wouldn't pull it off. After the trailers though I thought it looked pretty interesting.

Either way I'm not writing him off. D9 was awesome, Elysium was average but I still enjoyed it. Sure this would be 1 from 3 but there is still promise there. I like his visual style and the way he handles action, his usage of cgi is top notch. I like that he allows his actirs to use different accents as well, it gives his movies a unique feel.

I also think some of the ideas he attempts to portray are pretty cool. He just needs to get a good writer to really iron things out for him.

The fact that his movies tend to be similar in ideas and how they're shot doesn't bother me at all.

Anyway still looking forward to watching it, not expecting a masterpiece but I think it will still be fun on the big screen.

 

[overcast]

It looked pretty poor throughout. Seemed really confused in its tone while covering Blompkamp territory aesthetically and thematically.

Don't fuck up Alien. Maybe he's got a 50% hit ratio and got his bad movies out of the way?

 

[juliushandle]

I've lost faith in RT scores after they rated Snowpiercer so highly. Movie was absolutely terrible.

I also enjoyed Dom Hemmingway and Dracula Untold, both of which were rated poorly.

 

[hamchan]

The downward slide since District 9 continues. Need Real Steel 2 for Hugh Jackman robot goodness.

 

[AdventureRacing]

I'll admit I've got no idea how that accent (which kept changing) managed to make it into the movie. I still enjoy watching a big budget movies with accents that we don't normally get to here. It could just be that I've always liked south African accents though.

 

[Flynn77]

Yep, but to be fair that was studio butchering.

 

[Nazgul11]

The downward slide since District 9 continues. Need Real Steel 2 for Hugh Jackman robot goodness.

The world needs more Xbox 720 adverts.

 

[Atraveller]

Ouch! Will watch on cable I guess.

 

[Thug Waffle]

Well, at least his next Alien movie can't be any worse that Prometheus.

honestly i think it can be

 

[Chuckie]

Yeah I saw that but it looks like they counted the Time Out guy's review twice.

It almost looks like he has two accounts. One for Time Out, on for Time Out New York.


Anyway.... I am sad this film appears to be not very good

 

[Fallout-NL]

Could this convince Fox to have some writers step in on that Alien project?

 

[Lé Blade Runner]

Now it's 4 fresh, 6 rotten - not especially bad. Seems to be a divisive film in any regard.

Still going to see it, though.

 

[Deadbeat]

honestly i think it can be

lindelof writing the new alien film?

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Oh, now you guys are worried about the guy in charge of the Alien fan-film not being able to fucking write. Now it occurs to you this might not have been the best course of action for Fox to take.

I doubt they're going to force a writer on him because they signed off based on his pitch. He's already got the keys.They bought a fan-film. That's what they're going to get.

lindelof writing the new alien film?

you've been banging this drum a few times today: Lindelof wasn't the reason Prometheus sucked. Scott was. Lindelof just had to try translating those bad ideas to the page. Sure, he added a few of his own, but laying that film's fuckups solely at Lindelof's feet is letting Ridley Scott off the hook.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Oh, now you guys are worried about the guy in charge of the Alien fan-film not being able to fucking write. Now it occurs to you this might not have been the best course of action for Fox to take.

I doubt they're going to force a writer on him because they signed off based on his pitch. He's already got the keys.They bought a fan-film. That's what they're going to get.



you've been banging this drum a few times today: Lindelof wasn't the reason Prometheus sucked. Scott was. Lindelof just had to try translating those bad ideas to the page. Sure, he added a few of his own, but laying that film's fuckups solely at Lindelof's feet is letting Ridley Scott off the hook.

Bobby, you say this as if half of the people on the forum's initial reaction wasn't 'Uhhhh....'

 

[Kevtones]

The trailer is like showing Mechwarrior gameplay with weird vocoder VO.

 

[HowZatOZ]

I'll see it purely because of Die Antwoord. Don't really care what reviewers say, I usually judge it on my own merits.

 

[UberTag]

Now it's 4 fresh, 6 rotten - not especially bad. Seems to be a divisive film in any regard.

Still going to see it, though.

Metacritic tells me those Fresh reviews are lukewarm at best and those Rotten reviews are scathing.

 

[AtomicSymphonic]

I must be one of the few who thought the Elysium was outstanding and District 9 was phenomenal.

But seeing the trailers for this film, not too interested. The humor is what was tickling me, though.

 

[adelante]

The strength of District 9 is that it toed close to the documentary style and because the aliens couldn't say things in English, it forced Blomkamp to consider how to convey a story efficiently and logically.

For a more conventional style of film, I get the impression Blomkamp is still too inexperienced (amateurish) in the plotting and dialog department.

Yep. The parts in the District 9 that didn't adhere to that documentary style are easily the worst, even cheesy in terms of how he frames certain scenes.

 

[Akahige]

I don't think I have it in me to pay to see another bad movie with a few redeeming action set pieces after Jupiter Ascending.

Dude needs to stop writing scripts, come up with the base story and hand it off to someone with writing talent.

 

[tringworldso]

Shit, people hate Only God Forgives so much that they forget Pusher 1-3, Bleeder, Bronson, and Drive?

Spoiler

I agree that he's better when he's not so up his own ass though

But Drive wasn't written by Nic and with Bronson he had help with the screenplay. Especially love Drive which is such a slick movie and Bronson is such a crazy movie with a naked Tom Hardy for the majority of it lol

Haven't watched his Danish output though. One day...

 

[Mike Works]

Signs is awesome.

The Village does indeed suck, though. Great score however.

It was shot nice too.

But man, I still remember coming out of that film trying to find a way to convince myself that the ending was good.

The Sixth Sense is terrific, Unbreakable was underrated, and I personally love Signs to death.

The Village was so great for 90% of the film... the acting, the pacing, the score as you mentioned.

Then... such a letdown.

 

[Morgoth]

I just got back from an employee screening(work at a cinema). I LOVED it. It is very different from District 9 and Elysium. The story has some emotional depth. You feel sad for Chappie. CHappie grows and learns in a very unique way. Die Antwoord was implemented very well. They felt very natural to the story. It didn't feel gimmicky at all. The film has some unique ideas about conscious that it explores later in the film. The film had some interesting things to say about creation and destruction. I liked it better than District 9 and much better than Elysium. Over all an 8.7/10

 

[nico1982]

More like Crappie, amirite?

Floppie.

Should have been first post, both of them.

 

[Loakum]

Was there any doubt this film would be crappie?

 

[Joeku]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NOabk7Lt2E

 

[EBE]

seeing this for die antwoord, if im being honest.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Oh damn