Chappie
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: March 6, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
41
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
20
Negative:
11
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonMar 5, 2015
This hugely entertaining oddity could never be mistaken for the work of any other filmmaker. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 5, 2015
It’s a good sci-fi action movie, too. Far be it from me to give this movie the kiss of death by making it seem too serious for its core audience. Chappie is everything it has to be — but it’s everything it should be, too. Read full review
75
The PlaylistDrew TaylorMar 4, 2015
Between the charming Copley performance, the ingenious visuals, the absolutely incredible all-electronic Hans Zimmer score (seriously, this is one of his best ever), and the propulsive narrative thrust (Blomkamp is rarely singled out for how swiftly he moves things along, plot holes be damned), there is a lot to appreciate and even love about Chappie. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonMar 5, 2015
There's something fearlessly uncool about the film, which suffers mostly from being made 30 years too late. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanMar 5, 2015
With a titanium body and a child's mind, Chappie is a fascinating figure, vividly rendered, enough so that you wish there was a better movie around him. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerMar 5, 2015
This is a well-meaning film with a good idea that unfortunately stumbles on its way to its less-than-satisfying end. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoMar 5, 2015
Chappie boasts so many entertaining elements, particularly the lead motion-capture performance by Blomkamp’s go-to guy Sharlto Copley, its shortcomings don’t sink the movie. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigMar 5, 2015
Chappie is meant to inspire questions about what it means to be human, and at times it does. However, director and co-writer Neill Blomkamp doesn't explore its intriguing premise deeply enough. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 5, 2015
Even at his shakiest, Mr. Blomkamp holds your attention with stories about characters banding together to emerge from a hell not of their own making, a liberation journey that just isn’t the same old, same old when a director was born in South Africa. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatt MaytumMar 5, 2015
Like its title character, Chappie is stunning to behold and easy to like, but it’s still some way from fully developed. Read full review
60
EmpireChris Hewitt (1)Mar 5, 2015
Blomkamp’s third movie has just about enough spectacle and quirk to overcome some fairly major flaws, not least of which is an unappealing central trio. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 5, 2015
Chappie is a broad, brash picture, which does not allow itself to get bogged down in arguing about whether or not “artificial intelligence” is possible. It has subversive energy and fun. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 5, 2015
It’s a brawny, inventive action romp that’s as happy firing rockets at helicopters as it is contemplating the Cartesian model of mind-body dualism, which gives it a satisfying, sweet-and-sour tang of its own. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleWilliam GossMar 11, 2015
Now, with Chappie, the director/co-writer returns home for an uneven showcase of impeccable visual effects and lackluster emotional affect. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 7, 2015
Criminally underwritten characters result in actors like Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, and Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) having little to do. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyKyle AndersonMar 6, 2015
When we’re first introduced, he’s an overwhelmed infant, and by the time the credits roll, he’s John McClane. Is that an accurate representation of how artificial intelligence can evolve? Absolutely. Does it make for compelling drama? Not particularly. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMar 6, 2015
Chappie has a nothing-to-lose Roger Cormanesque quality about it, low on budget (except for the CGI robots) and low on meaning, but full of high-velocity chases, helicopter pursuits, and weapons blasting around empty warehouses marred by graffiti and trash. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyMar 5, 2015
A movie about a robot policeman given a childlike conscience, Chappie is one of those incongruous Franken-films that’s simultaneously bombastically brutal and treacly. Like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial crossed with Transformers, or RoboCop starring Jar Jar Binks, it’s a recipe guaranteed to produce aesthetic indigestion. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 5, 2015
The technology is seamless, the movements are eloquent and the problem may be my own misprogramming, but the robot still looked to me like a man in a robot suit. Read full review
50
HitfixDrew McWeenyMar 5, 2015
Chappie feels like Blomkamp and his co-writer Terri Tatchell had three or four different films they wanted to make, and instead of figuring out which one actually worked, they just made them all at the same time. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Mar 5, 2015
Like "Elysium," this rusty A.I. story is basically just "District 9" with a new coat of paint; it’s distinguished only by the jabbering, irritating personality of its title character. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 5, 2015
Blomkamp regular Sharlto Copley is quite good — as Chappie, in a motion-capture performance. (He also provides the voice of the robot.) If this were somehow a commentary on man's increasing lack of humanity or something, that would be fine. Instead, it's just good work buried inside a movie made up of intriguing ideas that never really go anywhere. Read full review
50
IndieWireTravis ClarkMar 4, 2015
While it has a few appealing qualities, as a whole it amounts to a well-intentioned bag of missed opportunities. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 5, 2015
The movie's glaring problem is the design and execution of Chappie, whose look is unremarkable except for a pair of polymer rabbit ears ready for meme posterity. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsGraham FullerMar 5, 2015
Chappie is as subtle as a sledgehammer. The latest sci-fi action spectacle from “District 9” and “Elysium” director Neill Blomkamp is also sprawling, bombastic, deafening, ugly and ultra-violent. Read full review
40
The DissolveTasha RobinsonMar 5, 2015
It never winds up with anything particularly interesting or effective to say about life, intelligence, religion, the nature of consciousness, or any of the other big themes it deliberately evokes. It does, however, blow up a lot of stuff. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 4, 2015
Chappie is a bucket of bolts, Blomkamp’s desire to say meaningful things outdistancing his ability to say them compellingly. Read full review
40
TheWrapJames RocchiMar 4, 2015
It’s too bad that neither the philosophy nor the pyrotechnics on-screen in Chappie can distract you from your own sinking feeling that you’ve seen almost all of this before. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 5, 2015
Blomkamp and his wife and co-writer, Terri Tatchell, stack the deck. Instead of awe, we get "E.T." - aww. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 5, 2015
Despite Blomkamp’s efforts to make some kind of commentary about the human soul, which the auteur bolsters with his trademark social consciousness — a tone of preachiness that, after three films, has worn out its welcome — the movie exhibits precious little humanity. Read full review
30
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 6, 2015
It’s not just that Chappie is a mishmash of familiar ingredients whose story quickly slides off the rails into a swamp of action-movie clichés, or another misbegotten project from the Land of Intriguing Premises. It doesn’t have an intriguing premise in the first place. It’s cluttered, goofy and incoherent from beginning to end, and much too long. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMar 4, 2015
With unappealing one-note characters, retread concepts and implausible motivations, Chappie is a further downward step for director Neill Blomkamp. Read full review
30
VarietyJustin ChangMar 4, 2015
Intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is one of the major casualties of Chappie, a robot-themed action movie that winds up feeling as clunky and confused as the childlike droid with which it shares its name. Read full review
25
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiMar 6, 2015
An exhausting slog through overly familiar cliches that is nowhere near as profound or touching as it clearly thinks it is and is utterly lacking in the kind of intelligence and artistry that it so often pays lip service to in the dialogue. Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickMar 5, 2015
“Short Circuit” meets “RoboCop” — with asides to “WALL-E,” “E.T.,” “The Road Warrior” and many other better movies — in Chappie, an interminable, violent, incoherent and wearying R-rated sci-fi action comedy. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineChris CabinMar 5, 2015
The film's exasperating atonality washes out any legitimate idea about identity, education, nature versus nurture, or artificial intelligence that Neill Blomkamp hoped to evince. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 4, 2015
Wrongheaded in conception, eye-rolling in execution, Chappie is a childish blend of the cute robot goofiness of “Short Circuit,” and the bloody-minded mayhem of “Robocop.” Neill Blomkamp, the director of “District 9,” has utterly exhausted his supply of South African sci-fi ideas with this disaster, an excruciating two hours of your life you will fear, quite rightly, ever getting back. Read full review
20
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 5, 2015
Chappie is a movie about the evolution of artificial intelligence that's as dumb as a post. It also marks the continuing devolution of the work of director and co-writer Neill Blomkamp. Read full review
0
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 5, 2015
A misjudgment from metallic head to titanium toe. Read full review
More From This Movie

41 Critic Reviews

7.2 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 86 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
2 84 Are You There God? It's Me,...
3 78 John Wick: Chapter 4
4 75 Polite Society
5 73 Air
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL