Critical response
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 32% approval rating, based on 227 reviews, and a rating average of 4.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Chappie boasts more of the big ideas and visual panache that director Neill Blomkamp has become known for – and, sadly, more of the narrative shortcomings." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 41 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. According to CinemaScore, audiences gave the film a grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
Justin Chang of Variety wrote, "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." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "With unappealing one-note characters, retread concepts and implausible motivations, Chappie is a further downward step for director Neill Blomkamp."
Tim Grierson of Screen International wrote, "...despite his ambitions, Chappie is a bucket of bolts, Blomkamp's desire to say meaningful things outdistancing his ability to say them compellingly." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that Blomkamp "struggles with the material" but "even at his shakiest, Mr. Blomkamp holds your attention". Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it "cartoonish and preposterous, and not in a good way".
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle rated it three out of four stars and wrote of Blomkamp, "It's hard to say how much he's doing consciously and how much he's doing through intuition, but he's doing really interesting things in Chappie, and right from the beginning." Tom Huddleston of Time Out London rated it four out of five stars and wrote that "this hugely entertaining oddity could never be mistaken for the work of any other filmmaker."
Ryan Lambie, from Den of Geek, gave the film a positive review stating, "Despite the ragged edges of its story, Chappie nevertheless has real heart beating under its shabby exterior. If you liked the director's previous films, you owe it to yourself to see this one too." IGN reviewer Josh Lasser also gave Chappie a positive review, with a 'Good' score of 7.6 out of 10. He praised Sharlto Copley's performance and the "big questions" it asks, but criticized its failure to answer those questions.
Several reviewers compared the Chappie character unfavorably to Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars. Sameen Amer of The Express Tribune opined that the film disregards logic as certain "existential quandaries" are randomly thrown in without straightening out any of the themes before moving on to the next.
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