Chappie
CHAPPIE is most notable for its depiction of the worst dysfunctional workplace ever: bumbling CEO (Sigourney Weaver), jealous psychopathic co-worker (Hugh Jackman) who visits the next cubicle to threaten his rival (Dev Patel) with a gun pressed to the temple. (But hey, he reveals afterwards it was unloaded, so ha-ha, just a prank! And nobody in the office so much as emails HR??) Too bad the movie is supposed to be about a robot who becomes sentient. Neil Blomkamp, a writer/director of science-fiction films including the wonderful District 9 and the mediocre Elysium, here fails to make anything convincing, from the world he depicts to the actions of the characters to most especially the robot of the title (voiced by Blomkamp’s go-to actor, Sharlto Copley), who’s supposed to be cute but comes across as an annoying contrivance of the screenwriter. (Note–Truly cute robots don’t speak much in human dialogue: R2-D2, the drones of Silent Running, WALL-E. It would have helped if Chappie had learned how to STFU.) The result is as clumsy as a droid with bad motor control. –YSM
You do realize Chappie is essentially Short Circuit from the 80s done with a bigger budget.
Mercifully, I’ve never seen Short Circuit, Ed, so I’ll have to take your word for it