Chappie is the most satisfying movie I've seen, due to its alignment with my beliefs. I felt the impact of hope while watching this, which is rare. Things that I hope for are shown in this movie.

I strongly disagree with death and I feel it is something that needs to be corrected. Nature is inefficient and goes to extremes to do simple things. A perfect example is that it takes something the size of the Earth to make one G. With graser technology we will be able to make millions of Gs using far less mass. Of course, we don't have grasers yet, but it is fun to consider the implications. Nature takes billions of years of evolution, allowing the deaths, the exterminations, of trillions to make one species that cogitates. This one species, in the course of something around 100,000 years, is on the path to producing yet another type of cogitation, known as A.I. Additionally, we'll do it without exterminating quadrillions of tons worth of living organisms.

Chappie shows a way out. When compared to written science fiction, the way out is crude and primitive. More advanced methods were being written about in the 1940s, but cinema is way, way behind written science fiction. Even a really clean and slick looking movie like Chappie is not very advanced, compared to the stuff I read. Cinema is powerfully holding back, refraining, from showing the cool stuff - and I have no idea why. Anyway, I don't have a religion telling me that when I die I will go someplace better. I have no such thing, so I have to rely upon technology.

Ranking is as follows:

Chappie >> District 9 >>>>>>>>>>> Elysium

Translation:

Chappie is very much superior to District 9 and District 9 is so vastly superior to Elysium that it strains me to consider the degree of superiority.

I can't help but feel there is so much wrong with this sentence,,, yet I don't really know why. As an opening for discussion it's particularity gabbing but for all the wrong reasons. To be honest after reading this sentence I don't feel a need to read what follows it.

It's hardly unusual for people to like things because they align with their beliefs.

But no, maybe not the best way to begin a review or article that's meant to be convincing (unless you know the audience shares those beliefs).

I guess the honesty about that is a positive and something we don't often read. There is often a pretence of objectivity when in fact what Jodo introduced his post with is the reality for many of our views.

Haven't seen the movie. Here's the synopsis from RT:

"In the near future, crime is patrolled by an oppressive mechanized police force. But now, the people are fighting back. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself. As powerful, destructive forces start to see Chappie as a danger to mankind and order, they will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo and ensure that Chappie is the last of his kind."

By the way, it currently holds a 31% rating at RT, so I probably won't see it

Why do you pay attention to Rotten Tomatoes? That site's ratings are about as useful as those on IMDB. Just for kicks, look up reviews for your most loved movies; you'll be amazed at the negativity.

When I decide to see a movie or not, I first check that it's in my preferred genre and then I check for the director. If it's science fiction or horror film and I like the director, then I almost always like the movie. I don't make efforts to watch movies I suspect I won't like. The impression I get from many negative reviews is that the reviewer may have strayed from a preferred or favorite genre, through invitation or curiosity. If someone does not like science fiction, watches a science fiction film, and then gives it a poor rating, then that leads to the question of why the reviewer watched it in the first place. This is a great confusion for me.

As an example, I greatly dislike Adam Sandler type comedies and anything resembling the movie Super Troopers. If I were like the idiots on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, then I would watch movies I knowingly dislike and then rate them poorly. But I'm not an idiot, and I do my best to stay away from any movie that I know (not suspect) I will not like.

I genuinely believe there are people out there that purposely write negative reviews because they just don't like the director or certain actors. They want to hurt the film for personal reasons.

That's a failure on my part. I am aware that you have to keep the audience in mind, but I feel strongly about Chappie, so I couldn't hold back.

I gotta admit, Chappie looks interesting but 60% of my interest is to see what Die Antwoord is doing in that movie.

Honestly this movie looked pretty terrible from the trailers. Absolutely nothing about it hooked me. Also, rotten tomatoes is overall a much better gauge than IMDB but still has its flaws. I align with almost all rotten tomatoes scores in films of recent years.

Two of my co-workers recently saw Chappie and they both loved it. One of them said his daughter saw the blu-ray and wouldn't watch it because of the name, but he told her to watch it and she loved it.

As I stated above, there are very likely people out there that just look at a movie and write a "review" based on that. Imagine if my co-worker's daughter told people that Chappie was a bad movie simply based on the fact she didn't like the title.

I watched this recently on a flight and wasn't impressed. The movie tries too hard to make you care, and outside of the titular robot, the protagonists are thoroughly unlikeable. So far, Blomkamp is one for three with me.

The character design for Chappie reminds me of the character design for Cubix, from that 3D CG cartoon from Cartoon Network, Cubix: Robots for Everyone. Never actually watched the show itself, but they certainly showed ads for it often enough.

Honestly, I've never seen a movie score above 30% on that site.