'Chappie': Film Review — hollywoodreporter.com

Along with its innumerable other shortcomings, Chappie is one of the annoyingly growing number of films in which any and every character — here they run the gamut from techies to gangstas to robots — can instantly break into any computer system whenever they need to in about two seconds; a quick flurry of finger moves over the keyboard and they're invariably in, no problem. Is there ever a movie in which characters do this and then can't get in? This is but a minor irritant in a film well endowed with major ones, notably: unappealing one-note characters, retread concepts, implausible motivations and a ludicrous survival rate given the firepower expended upon the central figures. After the surprise and promise of District 9, this represents a further downward step for director Neill Blomkamp in the wake of the highly uneven Elysium.

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