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First reviews for Neil Blomkamp's Chappie

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ninjabat

Member
It NEEDS to get to 60%, these haters have too much sugar in their diet. They need some salt damnit! Will make for an entertaining thread :)
 
53 %. With the same positive review by Huddleston linked twice, lol.



Speed Racer is not Chappie, and I didn't like Speed Racer. But nice strawman.

How is that a strawman? People put too much stock in critics opinions, despite evidence pointing to the fact that they won't always agree.

Especially a bogus one like RT, which is worse than IMDB and metacritic because of its binary good or bad system.
 

Choomp

Banned
Can't say I didn't expect this. It's seemed like he's been going down since District 9, and what I saw from this movie didn't look very good.
 
I got worried when i saw that 14% but then i clicked on it and damn it's at 54% now that's not bad for an original sci-fi like this, can't wait, i like Blomkamp so far, D9 is a classic, Elysium was just okay but had some really neat ideas, and i love artifical intelligance/robot movies so i hope i love Chappie.
 

Draconian

Member
It's an amazing film, sure it's simple (as was the source material) and yes it's visually stunning, it's a well crafted movie...



So, why is it better now? internet era? please explain

Pretty much. For older films there aren't as many reviews out there for them to pull from, and a lot of them that are there are written years after the movie's release.
 

BajiBoxer

Banned
I loved District 9, and though it had some issues I thought Elysium was more good than bad. Hovering around 50% on RT usually isn't too bad, though I'm not sure this film will really appeal to me.

I'm looking forward to Alien though. His movies have been pretty great with effects and action, but I'm curious to see if it'll get the atmosphere right. The first two Alien films had this great sense of tension and dread that I haven't experienced in Blomkamp's first two films.
 

injurai

Banned
I really dislike them, so it's put me off ever watching this film. Especially wuth poor reviews :/

I enjoy some of their stuff, and I'm pretty put off by their inclusion. So I can only imagine what it's like for everyone else watching the film.
 
This looked stupid and boring in both the trailers I've been subjected to 4 or 5 times over the past month at the cinema. I was never gonna see it anyway. Who gives a fuck about chappie.
 

Dicer

Banned
This looked stupid and boring in both the trailers I've been subjected to 4 or 5 times over the past month at the cinema. I was never gonna see it anyway. Who gives a fuck about chappie.

Apparently you cared enough to make a useless post about not caring...
 
Apparently you cared enough to make a useless post about not caring...

It's no more useless than any other anticipatory opinion, it's just negative. I care somewhat that this kind of stuff doesn't look interesting. If you like the look of the movie, have a blast. I never liked the look of it, that's all.
 

Jacob

Member
There's a lot more reviews to collaborate online these days; a lot of the movies pre 2000 have very little reviews so a consensus has a greater chance of being off on RT.

It's more that with pre-2000 movies, most of the reviews were written years after the fact, which introduces biases and follow-the-leader effects that aren't (as) present in reviews written when a movie first comes out. If a movie is remembered as shit, it gets a lot less positive reviews down the road, but if it's remembered as great, it gets a lot less negative reviews. The two Star Wars trilogies exemplify both of these trends.
 

Oersted

Member
How is that a strawman? People put too much stock in critics opinions, despite evidence pointing to the fact that they won't always agree.

Especially a bogus one like RT, which is worse than IMDB and metacritic because of its binary good or bad system.

Who are those people? How do they put too much stock in critics opinions? Who are you to decide that they do? Yes, some people enjoy/dislike some movies despite critical consensus.

IMDB and Metacritic are worth less. Especially IMDB. Hype inflated fanboy ratings. Why you put so much stock into them is beyond me.

Lets make it simple. If you have a compelling argument that Chappie is better than the critical consensus, I will listen.
 

shaki123

Member
There are tons of director's with a better trackrecord to tackle the new Alien film. Bomkamp is an average director at best. Surely he is a great visualiser but that doesn't make a good movie. He is a walking PR machine. You know who should do Alien? The guy who did Birdman, with Blomkamp working as conceptual artist. Nothing more. Let Scott produce it and make the film a succes. I think Paul W.S. Anderson is even a better fit for this movie then Blomkamp. While AvP was kinda screwed over, it still had some nice Alien-esque moments and even fucking Lance Henriksen. Goddamn. I have a bad feeling about this.
 

dork

Banned
this is sad....i really thought this was giong to be good. Ill still see it though because Rotten Tomatoes is junk
 
Spoil me the ending?

spoilers for the end of the movie don't read obviously unless you want to

At the beginning of the movie its established that Chappie's battery is not swappable so he is going to "die" in 5 days. After ED-209 (Hugh Jackmans rockem sockem robot) fights everyone most of the humans die, including Chappie's "mom", and Dev Patel (creator).

However Chappie reverse-engineers consciousness (it is downloadable to a flash drive, NOT KIDDING) and at the last moment downloads Dev Patel to a test robot body and Chappie to another soldier body, so they are effectively immortal. At the very end Chappie takes over the robot factory, builds a new type of robot that looks more human, and downloads a backup of his Antwoord mommy into it.

Yes, humans now can be immortal but that point is never touched upon or thought of as something that could be valuable. Chappie and his 2 new robot buddies will go on to further adventures in Chappie 2: The Search for a Real Plot.

The movie is really just a semi philosophical treatise on what it means to be alive, but its not done very well (Blade Runner and the half dozen AI indie 2014 movies do it better) and it doesn't explore at all what the impacts to society other than "Hugh Jackman doesn't like the idea". Like the Hobbit trilogy it drowns too much in its special effects and not enough time on why people do what they do.

For a scene % I'd say Chappie is in the movie probably 70%, Die Antwood (sic) is like 70%, Dev Patel about 30%, Hugh Jackman about 30%, and Sigourney Weaver has at most 15 lines.
 

Camwi

Member
spoilers for the end of the movie don't read obviously unless you want to

At the beginning of the movie its established that Chappie's battery is not swappable so he is going to "die" in 5 days. After ED-209 (Hugh Jackmans rockem sockem robot) fights everyone most of the humans die, including Chappie's "mom", and Dev Patel (creator).

However Chappie reverse-engineers consciousness (it is downloadable to a flash drive, NOT KIDDING) and at the last moment downloads Dev Patel to a test robot body and Chappie to another soldier body, so they are effectively immortal. At the very end Chappie takes over the robot factory, builds a new type of robot that looks more human, and downloads a backup of his Antwoord mommy into it.

Yes, humans now can be immortal but that point is never touched upon or thought of as something that could be valuable. Chappie and his 2 new robot buddies will go on to further adventures in Chappie 2: The Search for a Real Plot.

The movie is really just a semi philosophical treatise on what it means to be alive, but its not done very well (Blade Runner and the half dozen AI indie 2014 movies do it better) and it doesn't explore at all what the impacts to society other than "Hugh Jackman doesn't like the idea". Like the Hobbit trilogy it drowns too much in its special effects and not enough time on why people do what they do.

For a scene % I'd say Chappie is in the movie probably 70%, Die Antwood (sic) is like 70%, Dev Patel about 30%, Hugh Jackman about 30%, and Sigourney Weaver has at most 15 lines.

Woof. I don't like those percentages.
 

original.gif

wow.
 

jtb

Banned
If a film gets a 30% on RT, that means 30% of critics liked it. Or would recommend it. So what's the problem? We're dealing more in probabilities than black/white "this film is good/bad", more "there's a 30% chance you'll like it." that's how I look at it anyways.
 

injurai

Banned
You're saying it COULD have started this way?

IcnPQ.jpg

The whole black sludge could have been worked into the existing mythos. It was some sort of genetic flint and tinder to get the xenomorph life cycle up and running. There certainly could be some extra steps involved to bootstrap it all.

Sadly they made it extremely inconsistent which left us with feeling the goo was arbitrary in it's behavior versus directed and terrifying. Well I guess it's still terrifying but i'm at a lose in describing what it was missing.
 

Toothless

Member
You know who should do Alien? The guy who did Birdman, with Blomkamp working as conceptual artist.

Inarritu doing a blockbuster would absolutely terrible. The guy is less subtle than Nolan or Blomkamp and has really no idea how to stage things either. It'd be pretentious crap with dull action scenes. At least Blomkamp ensures the latter won't happen.
 

OneLifeCycle

Neo Member
If a film gets a 30% on RT, that means 30% of critics liked it. Or would recommend it. So what's the problem? We're dealing more in probabilities than black/white "this film is good/bad", more "there's a 30% chance you'll like it." that's how I look at it anyways.

Yeah, I'm kind of getting fed-up with the entire critic thing both with games and movies. Some people are just too damn critical of the most trivial bullshit. It's what happened to the latest Dracula film. Did horrible according to the critics but go on Google Play and read the reviews... 4 and 5 stars mostly. I saw it the other night and it was a great flick. For me, if I'm entertained and not staring at my watch that's all I ask. I let stupid shit slide and don't let reflect on the overall appeal of the movie. Some people can't let those things go. It's just not how I am.

Looking forward to seeing this film.
 
You're saying it COULD have started this way?

IcnPQ.jpg

With as much that's wrong with Prometheus, the fact people still feel compelled to stack the deck against it is weird. Why exaggerate/misrepresent what's wrong with the film when what's ACTUALLY wrong with the film is damning enough.

Plus whoever came up with that stupid infographic didn't even get the basic details of the shit right.
 

jtb

Banned
The person who should do Alien is a good director. Any good director.

I hate directors who refuse to push their limits and make films outside of their comfort zone (ie. their genre of choice), and, vice versa, "sci-fi" projects getting handed to "sci-fi" directors.

Look at Villeneuve and Blade Runner; that's a far more inspired choice than Blomkamp and Alien. and, even tonally/thematically/emotionally, Villeneuve is a far better fit for his respect franchise despite the fact that he's never shot a single frame of sci-fi in his life.
 
I'm glad I don't base my entertainment around reviews and other peoples opinions most of the time, I wouldn't enjoy damn near anything...

That said I'm stoked, Elysium isn't nearly as bad as people make it to be, and the bad parts were due to studio fuckery, Prometheus also is not bad, but GAF hyperbole and all that nonsense...

Someone please tell me the partial nudity is Yolandi and not Ninja or Jackmans arse or something...

Why is everyone crossing this movie off instantly? Half say it's awful and half say it's fantastic. So only the bad reviews count?

Plenty of decent films get decent reviews. People are crossing it off because as of right now it's still considered rotten and his last movie left a bad taste in many mouths. We were hoping this would be a return to form. Doesn't seem like it.

It's not that we can't form our own oponions btw but more often than not unless it's a cheesy action film or a horror movie there's little to find entertaining in movies with bad ratings for me. It's not bad enough to laugh at silly shit.
 
With as much that's wrong with Prometheus, the fact people still feel compelled to stack the deck against it is weird. Why exaggerate/misrepresent what's wrong with the film when what's ACTUALLY wrong with the film is damning enough.

Plus whoever came up with that stupid infographic didn't even get the basic details of the shit right.

Isn't there also the cut scene from Alien where Ripley finds Dallas cocooned by the xeno? I believe that was supposed to be an alternate method of reproduction, as there was no queen nor method for producing eggs/facehuggers on the Nostromo.
 
Isn't there also the cut scene from Alien where Ripley finds Dallas cocooned by the xeno? I believe that was supposed to be an alternate method of reproduction, as there was no queen nor method for producing eggs/facehuggers on the Nostromo.
I think it was an extended scene in Alien and then Aliens came up with its own method of reproduction with the intro of the queen but it has been a while.
 

jtb

Banned
honestly, the abortion scene in Prometheus was by far the best and most interesting part of the film so I really wasn't keeping track of the xenomorph cycle
 
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