Thus far this year, the only good movie I’ve seen has been American Sniper. Although I haven’t had many chances to make it to theaters lately, it is enough to make me call 2015 one of the worst movie years in recent memory (at least my memory).

So imagine my utter excitement when I saw the trailer for Chappie, a new blockbuster by the ambitious director of the fantastic movie District 9. The trailer looked like it had an interesting premise, so I was more than willing to check this movie out without anyone else’s opinion to prompt me. Big mistake. Had I consulted Rotten Tomatoes first, it would have kept me from seeing this utter waste of time…well, perhaps not a total waste of time, as I’ll explain below.

Chappie is about a futuristic world where human police officers are replaced by armor-plated attack robots, a move that succeeds in reducing crime. The attack robot’s design, created by inventor Deon Wilson, beats out the larger, bulkier, manned robot MOOSE designed by fellow inventor Vincent Moore (played by Hugh Jackson), who is angered by his co-worker’s success. Deon tests a new type of artificial intelligence on one of the police robots against the will of his employer, Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver). The robot acts like a real person, albeit a child, upon powering up. The main plot of the story follows this robot, called Chappie, being used as a sort of tool by a group of gangsters who think of themselves as Chappie’s parents. The secondary plot revolves around Chappie being discovered by Deon’s employers and ordered to be terminated, allowing Vincent to use his MOOSE robot to take down Chappie and the gangsters he’s with.

Here’s the biggest problem with the movie: The acting is pretty split down the middle. Chappie is played by relatively-popular actor Sharlto Copley, and he certainly gives it his all– the robot was intended to be the most likable character in the movie, and he certainly is. Copley’s acting has never faltered from what I’ve seen of him, and it gets even better with this role. Other good roles are shared by Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver, both of whom give great performances. And then we get to the gangsters, who paradoxically have oddly bigger roles than superstars Weaver or Jackman. Another big mistake. These first-time actors should not have had bigger roles than the experienced actors– indeed, their dialogue is bad, their execution is choppy, and I’ve seen better acting in budgetless backyard movies.

On the positive side, the visuals are, admittedly, impressive. Apparently, Chappie the robot was done with only special effects, and it looks really good. These are no B-grade effects– they are top-class, far too worthy to be tied to sub-par secondary characters. The movie also features a rather sickening amount of blood and violence, so as usual, a warning to those who can’t handle such things.

Here’s the biggest problem with this movie: It could have been so much more. Crappie – I mean, Chappie, was advertised as some kind of analysis of what it means to be human and the hardships a robot would face in a hard world. It could have raised a lot of thought-provoking questions… but the only things that were raised were my eyebrows at some of the movie’s stupid plot points. I expected to see a thought provoking work of genius, and all I got was a two-hour movie about a robot being taught gang signs and how to kill people. The movie got a million times better when these gangsters and this plot point was nowhere to be found. Focusing on Jackman and Weaver would have made this movie as good as Interstellar, and that’s saying something. Calling this movie a missed opportunity is a huge understatement.

On that topic, why in the world would you focus the movie more on gang activities and violence instead of raising deeper questions? If the film had focused on Chappie’s creator and his efforts to teach Chappie how to be human, we would have had not only a better movie, but the movie that I figured it would be when I saw the trailer. Chappie never really learns to be human, all he does is learn how to be used as a mindless tool by controlling, evil thugs. I expected to walk out feeling enlightened, and instead walked out confused about whether or not I saw a poor attempt at a science fiction movie or a crappy gang drama.

In the end, I found Chappie mostly a waste of my time. If you enjoy violent gang movies with robots in them, go right ahead and check it out. If you don’t, don’t make the mistake of wasting your time and money just to see this. Chappie only deserves 2 out of 5 stars — no, two out of five missed opportunities. I do not recommend this movie to anyone except the brainless, and even then, you’d still be smarter then the main character of this film.