TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: when walt disney pictures announced a live - action feature based on the ' 60s cartoon series of " mr . magoo , " special interests groups representing the vision - impaired let out a cry of dismay .
mr .
magoo , they claimed , would be an insult to the men and women they represented .
in fact , they were wrong .
mr .
magoo is not just an insult to the blind and near - blind ,
it 's an insult to every human being who has the misfortune to suffer through this dreadfully unfunny , 90 minute atrocity .
it 's stating the obvious to remark that disney appears to have run out of original ideas
.
look at their roster of 1996 and 1997 releases , and you 'll see a shocking list of retreads , including 101 dalmatians , george of the jungle , jungle2jungle , that darn cat ! , flubber , and now mr . magoo .
the best of these ( george of the jungle ) was mildly entertaining .
the worst , mr . magoo ,
exposes just how painful a bad movie experience can be .
the first problem with mr .
magoo is the script .
despite the collaboration of naked gun scribe pat proft , mr . magoo is comically barren .
from beginning to end , there 's not a laugh to be found .
every attempt at humor -- and there are lots of them -- falls flat with an audible thud .
you 'd think that out of the dozens of gags jammed into this film , at least a few would work , but that 's not the case .
i 've had more laughs during ingmar bergman pictures .
then there 's leslie nielsen , who looks , sounds , and acts absolutely nothing like the animated character ( memorably voiced by jim backus ) .
in the past , nielsen has proven his comic aptitude with roles in movies like airplane and the naked gun .
lately , however , he has been getting lazy , taking parts in the likes of dracula : dead and loving it , spy hard , and mr . magoo .
even if nielsen was in top form , it would take an incredible stretch of imagination to see him as magoo ( especially since we 're reminded of the original by the short cartoon segments that open and close the film ) , but " top form " is not a phrase i would use to describe his performance here .
this is strictly a take - the - money - and- run operation .
the story , which , like many disney stories , can be described in one long sentence : magoo is the only witness to the theft of a rare jewel from a museum , and , as he is trying to apprehend the thieves on his own , the police mistake him for the robber .
the cops are played by ernie hudson and stephen tobolowsky , who take their lumps early and often .
the bad guys are kelly lynch ( who does a lot of martial arts - type kicking ) , nick chinlund , and malcolm mcdowell ( who has the good sense to look embarrassed ) .
matt keeslar portrays one of magoo 's sidekicks -- his nephew , waldo .
the bumbling man 's other , more interesting companion is a dog named angus .
most of mr .
magoo 's humor comes in the form of failed slapstick .
the cartoon violence level in this film does n't approach that of home alone 3 or flubber , but it 's still pretty acute , with characters getting hit on the head with sledgehammers and knocked off snowy precipices .
there 's a non - violent bit with magoo preparing a chicken dinner that could have been funny if it was handled better , but , compared to mr .
bean 's recent , similar misadventure , it does n't hold up well .
then there is the series of lame jokes that result from magoo 's near blindness , such as the occasion when he mistakes a wild animal for a baby .
i 'm willing to cut director stanley tong a little slack .
tong , a hong kong film maker trying to break into the hollywood market , has helmed several jackie chan movies , including first strike , rumble in the bronx , and supercop .
his chief talent , that of choreographing martial arts fights , is wasted here ( despite some high kicking by kelly lynch ) .
like john woo ( hard target ) and ringo lam ( maximum risk ) before him , it appears that tong has been consigned to the purgatory of making a bad movie as his entry into the american mainstream .
it is worth noting that , unlike many disney films which hold a perverse appeal for the under-10 crowd while driving parents to distraction , mr . magoo appears to bore viewers of all ages .
the screening i attended was wall - to - wall kids , and , for the most part ,
they did n't seem to be enjoying themselves .
when the film was over , i asked one little girl what she thought of it .
her pained expression confirmed the adage that a picture can indeed be worth a thousand words .
mr .
magoo is the kind of movie that should be rejected by any potential viewer
, sight unseen .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: susan granger 's review of " big eden " ( jour de fete )
it 's utopia , this tiny town tucked away in the timberland of northwestern montana , where old codgers lounge on the porch of the general store to pass the time away and the local matchmakers ( nan martin , louise fletcher ) eagerly pair off the young people , regardless of sexual preference .
there 's nary a homophobe or bigot around , much to the surprise of henry hart ( arye gross ) , a successful but lonely manhattan artist who returns home to care for sam ( george coe ) , the ailing grandfather who raised him .
and with the simultaneous re - appearance of his best - friend from high - school and object of his unrequited love ( tim dekay ) , now divorced with two young sons , the fact of his homosexuality must be faced .
to complete the triangle , there 's
the tall , taciturn native american ( eric schweig ) who owns the general store and lovingly yet secretly prepares gourmet meals for henry and sam .
this fable about home and family is a major debut for first - time film - maker thomas bezucha ( a former designer for coach and polo / ralph lauren ) who is meticulous about minding details , using ballads like " welcome to my world " and " achin ' , breakin ' heart " to set up the concept of our universal longing to find a place in which we can love and be loved .
in the paradise of big eden , what you are does n't matter as much as generosity of spirit , respect and kindness .
sure , the plot 's implausible but it 's a good - natured fantasy
so allowances should be made .
and rob sweeney 's photography of glacier national park is spectacular !
on the granger movie gauge of 1 to 10 , " big eden " is a charming , quirky , off - beat
7 .
it 's a heart - warming romantic comedy about a gay man who does n't die of aids or wind up alone at the end .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: it seems like i 'm reviewing cheeseball horror movies on a monthly basis now .
scream revitalized a genre the studios are now intent on burying into the ground again - the serial killers in these new slasher movies have nothing on sony and miramax in the " relentless " department .
i still know what you did last summer is a terrible film in many respects , but in the wake of the stupefyingly bad urban legend , it 's citizen hook .
jennifer love - hewitt reprises her role as buxom teenager julie james - who apparently escaped certain doom at the end of the last movie by . . . waking up .
she lives in fear of ben willis , the vengeful fisherman - victim of a hit and run by julie and her pals .
paranoid and beat , she accepts a free trip to the bahamas from her friend karla ( norwood ) , winner of the local radio station 's 4th of july getaway giveaway .
bikini - ready julie invites
boyfriend ray ( prinze , jr . ) , who - and here 's the movie 's biggest mystery - turns her down , but changes his mind and plans to surprise her before take - off . until he gets a roadside visit from captain hell - liner himself , that is .
unaware of this and feeling shunned , julie goes on vacation , anyway , with karla , karla 's boyfriend ( pfeiffer ) , and will ( matthew settle ) , a real boy - next - door type who 's sweet on julie .
to make a long story short - i ca n't believe it took a paragraph to describe the set - up for this gratuitous sequel - the trip is a disaster .
not only is it storm season , not only is the desk clerk ( the frighteners ' jeffrey combs ) a jerk , not only are the few island residents and our heroic vacationers getting picked off by the resourceful willis one - by - one , but the karaoke machine is n't working properly !
( you think killing is hard ?
try reprogramming a laserdisc so that gloria gaynor 's " i will survive
" now contains the lyric
" i still know what you did last summer ! " )
all is not lost - ray is on his way to save the day , and a helpful witch doctor is saying little prayers for julie and co .
this picture is really about breasts : two of them .
julie , like a good horror heroine , never does up her shirt to the collar , always wears white in the rain , and keeps sexy underwear on in case of a sudden desire to tan .
based on the hormonal charge i got out of the movie , i ca n't imagine what it was doing to the ten year old boy who sat next to me
- he gets jennifer love - hewitt , and my generation got heather langenkamp !
lucky bastard .
i did n't like
i know what you did last summer
and i ca n't say i liked this continuation any more or less .
the pacing in both films is languid-
how is it that so much time passes with neither murder nor character development ?
i still know what you did last summer has a better sense of humour than the first one , though , and at least it explains away willis 's random selection of victims .
( i do n't think the hotel maid or the stoner dude had the slightest idea
what julie did last summer . )
director cannon ( judge dredd ) is a competent filmmaker but not a particularly imaginative one - if there is a part three ( what on earth would they call it ? ) , and the fun denouement suggests there will be , here 's my suggestion : hire a filmmaker with flair , someone who can really energize this stillborn series - someone who wo n't rely on so many shock notes .
and let that person run wild with the camera .
( aside : if blandy [ sic ] must appear in the next one , try to keep the number of times she says " baby " to a minimum .
thanks in advance . )

SOLUTION:
N