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LTTP: Chappie (spoiler: it sucks)
- Thread starter RoadHazard
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Nails my issues with the movie 100%. It's mostly a mean spirited flick as well and you end up rooting for Chappie out of pity because almost everyone else is just that much worse.
spazchicken
Member
What makes you think it was trying to be more than just a sci-fi action movie? It's Robocop. It's Halo. It's Mission Impossible. Chappie was never a contender for an Oscar or Academy Award nomination. Not even as a thought in Neil's head.
What Chappie is, is a movie that does what it's basic plot points and visuals intend for it to do.
Please give me an example of where Chappie went wrong and what scenes you would have changed to make it the greatest movie starring a talking robot ever made. What would have won Chappie an Academy Award?
Is this an example of a straw man argument?
spazchicken
Member
Is this an example of using a buzz word to try to discredit an argument?
Please give me an example of where my post went wrong and what words you would have changed to make it the greatest post ever made. What would have won my post an Academy Award?
captjohnboyd
Member
I thought the title of the thread read chappelle show and I was about to go ballistic lol. He just filmed his Netflix special here in nola with Chris Tucker and Hannibal Burress.
OT I couldn't bring myself to watch it. I was a huge fan of district 9 and was amped for Elysium but after finally watching it (I don't care what anyone says I love Sharlto Copley in it and the world building was excellent) I couldn't have been more let down. As I said in the parentheses it had its good points but on the whole was garbage and chappie looked like an even bigger step down. I'm hopeful the director can make a comeback at some point, perhaps with someone else's script because he has real talent he's just not meant to write. District 9 was clearly lightening in a bottle for him.
OT I couldn't bring myself to watch it. I was a huge fan of district 9 and was amped for Elysium but after finally watching it (I don't care what anyone says I love Sharlto Copley in it and the world building was excellent) I couldn't have been more let down. As I said in the parentheses it had its good points but on the whole was garbage and chappie looked like an even bigger step down. I'm hopeful the director can make a comeback at some point, perhaps with someone else's script because he has real talent he's just not meant to write. District 9 was clearly lightening in a bottle for him.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
My girlfriend and I liked it for what it was. Entertainment.
Short Circuit will always be GOAT. Well the second one. The first will be SGOAT.
Short Circuit will always be GOAT. Well the second one. The first will be SGOAT.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
How come you expected that thing you didn't like to be the greatest thing in the world?
spazchicken
Member
This is the kind of behavior people usually resort to when they lost an argument.
NHarmonic.
Member
Oh i thought Elysium was amazing, tbh.
You haven't made an argument.You have insuniuated that having a desire for basic and coherent plot and character development is a form of snobbery.
Also,
This is a ridiculous statement.
I just watched this a couple hours ago and I'm glad I found a recent enough thread to complain in.
What an absolute embarrassment of a movie. Ignoring the increasing amount of absurdity in the film as the story plays out, how in the world were we supposed to give a shit about anything going on? Literally everyone except the robot is an unlikable asshole, devoid of any reason to feel otherwise.
You know a movie failed pretty hard when you're actively rooting for the cartoonishly evil villain to just murder the shit out of every main character. I would have stood up and clapped if that would've happened.
I cannot believe this is from the same guy that gave us District 9.
What an absolute embarrassment of a movie. Ignoring the increasing amount of absurdity in the film as the story plays out, how in the world were we supposed to give a shit about anything going on? Literally everyone except the robot is an unlikable asshole, devoid of any reason to feel otherwise.
You know a movie failed pretty hard when you're actively rooting for the cartoonishly evil villain to just murder the shit out of every main character. I would have stood up and clapped if that would've happened.
I cannot believe this is from the same guy that gave us District 9.
shattyboombatty
Member
This is die antwoord the movie. It helps to know that going in.
I liked it.
I liked it.
wondermega
Member
A somewhat divisive movie to say the least. Can't say I had great expectations, but I was willing to see it in the theater and wasn't disappointed. Almost no one would argue that it approaches D9, but for my money it was a huge step up from Elysium. I'm no fan of the band either - film was definitely not bad, but I can see how it could have been ruined by certain expectations. I'm interested to see what happens next with this director.
MooseKnuckles
Banned
Ok firstly, I think you might have a gigantic misunderstanding of RoboCop if you think it is aspiring to be only a cool robot action movie. There is some pretty major satire going on in that film and it's not subtle about it.
It doesn't matter if Blomkampf thought he was going to win an Oscar or not. What matters is that he tried to tackle topics including; if humanity can exist in an AI, how environmental factors create and propogate crime, the militarisation of police, along with a few others. It creates a world with a lot of potential but does nothing with it. It doesn't tie it's ideas together into something complete, and the ending of 'the lady gangster is a robot now' felt like it came out of a different movie.
As to your shitty strawman question at the end, if Neil wanted to make a film that could stand up to critique, he could look his first film, District 9. A much better executed film that uses its sci fi conceit to explore aparteid in South Africa (not super deeply, but certainly effectively), while also offering super fun CGI action. I'm not asking for every movie to offer some grand thesis, I just like it when they have something coherent to say.
In what world is Elysium and Chappie bad movies?? Did I somehow miss this new memo where all movies should be a sober British drama about human existential crisis in 1940s. Like for real OP, it is a sci-fi movie and while it doesn't stretch the topic or medium far or innovative wise, it does a damn good job at being a fun movie
CaviarMeths
Member
"You're expecting too much from a subgenre that contains some of the greatest films ever made."
Ok.
Seriously though, I can't think of a director that was considered such a big up-and-coming filmmaker after their first movie only to sink so low just two movies later. Not even Shyamalan had such a collapse.
I think this a major problem when trying to talk about the state of something or state of the world. It can never be coherent because the world has many problems that cannot just merge into one coherent thing. I picked this up in Elysium as well, it tends to come off as a reflection of the world and its many running problems. Of course as a movie, we usually want to follow the story of just the protagonist and usually that means the characters immediate concern but that usually funnels everything into simplistic answers which in my opinion makes a mockery of a complex topic
MooseKnuckles
Banned
Literally no one is saying this, this is such a frustrating response to basic criticism. People don't dislike Chappie because it's a sci-fi action movie, they dislike it because it is a poorly made sci-if action movie.
A movie is probably not the best example of its genre when it features a scene where it's main character is screaming "no more violence!" while they beat the shit out of someone with a pipe, and the director does nothing cinematically to suggest that this contradiction is deliberate.
CadetMahoney
Member
Elysium is miles better than chappie.
ginger ninja
Banned
Everyone loved district 9 because it was unique in a lot of ways. I was expecting great things from him after district 9.
But then he just ran with the district 9 look, pairing them with generic stories about distopian future. I am honestly having doubts about his alien project.
LordOfChaos
Member
I like the stack of PS4 supercomputer, lol. It's like someone heard about the PS3 cluster and assumed the PS4 would be even better, but it wouldn't make sense.
So M. Night but he fell of is earlier
reelbigtink
Member
Well, M. Night is at least batting .500. NB has 1 good movie to his name.
spazchicken
Member
The movie was about a robot and its relationship with a woman, her abusive partner, its creator and further down the line, its creator's rival. In order to spend it's hour and a half to two hours on the political climate would have made for a completely different movie.
Sounds like you wanted a much slower movie. The movie wasn't that deep and it wasn't meant to be. The fact that it had mature background noise does not mean that it's intentions were ever to be that.
You saw political struggles and CNN style news footage with robots at the beginning of the movie, got excited for a lot of suits talking in code with twists and turns sprinkled in with the meaning of life and was eventually disappointed by your own expectations when it turned out to be an action movie version of Short Circuit, which is also a pretty good movie, btw.
You may like Ex Machina. That movie is nothing but talk about life inside of AI and the morality around it. Chappie isn't that and if it was trying to be, it would have been.
Edit: Also, District 9 was laughable in parts. They're really going to go to a violent animal that doesn't understand what they want any better than a wild bear would, go to their camp and ask them to sign a form to be relocated as if they have human rights. They didn't even have proper hands to hold the pen. That was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in a movie.
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