TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: synopsis : lifelong friends rafe ( affleck ) and danny ( hartnett )
join the us air force and are stationed at pearl harbor , hawaii .
rafe goes to england to fight alongside british pilots and is seemingly killed in action .
danny falls in love with rafe 's girlfriend , evelyn ( beckinsale ) , but rafe survives and returns to confront his former friend .
meanwhile , the japanese sneak attack is imminent . . .
review : " pearl harbor " is a perfect example of movies as product rather than as art .
it is little more than a crassly - calculated attempt to woo the masses , enticing them with big stars , big effects , and a big setting -- but no heart .
it is difficult to criticise the actors , because they do everything the movie demands of them . sadly ,
this amounts to barely more than reciting dialogue of such sheer banality that it makes one eager to see the script randall wallace wrote with his right hand at the same time as he was writing " pearl harbor " with his left .
the plot here is pure cliche , and the wartime setting simply a convenient backdrop .
there is no genuine exploration of what pearl harbor meant to the united states , and no insight into its vital role in inciting that country to join world war ii . instead , there is just an assembly - line love triangle , some empty patriotic rhetoric , and a laughable attempt to placate japanese viewers via the inclusion of some reticent imperial commanders ( when one intones , " i fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant " , i nearly fell out of my seat ) .
to the movie 's credit , it does include a fantastic portrayal of the attack itself , an exciting and dizzying hour which plunges viewers into the war .
if only the remaining two hours had been crafted with such skill , perhaps this memorial day non - event would have been worth watching .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: talk about beating a dead horse !
when home alone was released in 1990 , it was a breath of fresh air , and the final box office tally indicated how much audiences appreciated a genuinely - funny family film .
the unexpectedly high gross guaranteed a sequel , so ,
two years later , we were subjected to home alone 2 , which might as well have been called clone alone for all of the originality it exhibited .
for john hughes , two home alone movies were n't enough ?
he began recycling the same kinds of villains and situations in almost every movie he was involved with , including a pathetic box office bomb called baby 's day out , last year 's live - action 101 dalmatians , and this year 's flubber .
now , inexplicably , hughes has exhumed not only these worn - out plot elements , but the " home alone " name as well . the result ?
1997 's worst sequel
( edging out speed 2 and batman and robin ) , home alone 3 . by changing the characters , hughes ( who wrote and co - produced the film ) , along with his co - conspirator , director raja gosnell , has attempted to inject new life into a series that is way past the point of cardiac arrest .
the new kid , alex pruitt , is played by alex d .
linz ( one fine day ) , and
the only thing he has going for him is terminal cuteness .
he 's not half as interesting as macaulay culkin once was .
the villains , pale copies of joe pesci and daniel stern , are even less engaging than the pair of idiots in flubber .
in home alone 3 , there are four of them ( olek krupa , david thornton , lenny von dohlen , and rya kihlstedt ) , but all that means is an opportunity for twice as many pratfalls .
this time , the kid is n't left home alone because his parents have gone on a trip .
instead , he has developed a bad case of chicken pox , so he ca n't go to school .
his dad ( kevin kilner ) is away on business and his mom ( haviland morris ) has to run errands , so , for the most part , he 's all by himself during the day .
through a series of coincidences too irritating to relate , a top secret u . s .
air force integrated circuit comes into his possession .
it 's wanted by a gang of four international crooks who intend to break into alex 's home to retrieve it .
the eight- year old , who is wise beyond his years , booby traps the house with all sorts of rube goldberg - type devices designed to humiliate and incapacitate the villains .
the movie 's climax takes place during a raging snowstorm ?
only none of the falling flakes looks remotely believable .
previously , the most counterfeit - looking snow effects i can remember were in star
trek iii .
these are far worse .
in fact , the production values are so shoddy that there are some scenes in the midst of this near - blizzard when a shining sun can be seen .
if it 's a wonderful life could generate real- looking snow back in the 1940s , why ca n't home alone 3 , which has a significantly larger budget and ' 90s technology at its disposal ?
there has been an ongoing debate regarding the appropriateness of live - action cartoon violence for young children .
home alone 3 will add fuel to the fire .
it 's one thing to see wyle e . coyote flattened by a 10 ton acme weight , but quite another to watch a running lawn mower fall on
lenny von dohlen .
adults and even older children will recognize that this is obviously fake and intended to be humorous , but what about five and six - year olds ?
the level of violence in home alone 3 is extreme ?
many of alex 's schemes are nasty enough to kill .
but , because this is a " family film , " no one dies , despite being electrocuted , falling thirty feet , and getting smacked on the head by a barbell .
not only is home alone 3 unnecessary , but it 's offensive .
it 's an exercise in tediousness , and there is n't a genuine laugh to be found from the beginning to the end ( unless , by some strange quirk of fate , you have missed every 1990s movie associated with john hughes , and thus have n't seen this stuff before ) .
i ca n't imagine anyone with a reasonable attention span being more than momentarily distracted by this pointless adventure .
maybe that 's why the only ones laughing at the screening i attended were still in their thumb - sucking years .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: new address .
same old attitude .
do n't forget to recommend a film , read the journal , or send me some of that nasty hate mail . )
starring bruce willis , billy bob thornton , liv tyler , ben affleck written by jonathan hensleigh
and j .
j .
abrams directed by michael bay it rocks -
actually , lots of rocks fly at us or from us , in slow or fast motion , at several points in the film .
they seem like dangerous rocks because they kind of twirl through the air instead of just propelling forward , and when they land - once in a while , when we need a break from the space sequences - they cause damage enough to destroy the chrysler building and the like .
( nary a mention of these apocalyptic events is made after they occur . )
they also just might be the most interesting element of armageddon , a steroid user 's answer to deep impact .
bruce willis stars as harry stamper , a famed oil - driller commissioned by the white house and nasa to stop a giant asteroid before it travels beyond " zero barrier " and destroys our planet .
why an oil driller ?
they require someone experienced with deep - core mining to plant a nuclear missile into said asteroid .
( in one unintentionally ( ? ) hilarious sequence , nasa asks harry to inspect a deep - core driller they built based on his own blueprints ; it is poorly constructed - harry criticizes almost every aspect of it .
we trust nasa to build space shuttles that can land on twirling asteroids ? )
harry assembles the obligatory " ragtag " bunch of " cowboys " , including a blond guy , a fat guy , a black guy , a wiseass , and the man who is sleeping with his daughter ( affleck ) .
once they reach space , we experience sequence after sequence of something going wrong -
perhaps the fact that they sent a bunch of nincompoops into outer space has something to do with it ; i can not count the number of times they almost fail the mission on all my fingers and toes .
whether or not they save the day , i will not reveal .
nor will you care .
i will say this : you know you 're in trouble when deep impact dwarfs your asteroid movie in terms of emotion and scope .
willis has barely a chance to come alive ; ditto for affleck .
their big scenes are mostly reserved for the third act , in a last minute - and futile - attempt to inject warmth into the material .
steve buscemi 's character - the wiseass - is exceptionally problematic .
" rockhound " , as he 's called , is sarcastic and foolish , so they tape him to a chair , where he spends most of the film .
so why did they bring him up there to begin with ?
rather , why write him into the film ?
-give his almost - witty one - liners to serious willis , who scowls and mopes and demonstrates psychotic tendencies : at one point he chases after affleck with his shotgun for screwing his daughter , firing often and causing significant damage to his oil rig .
i 'm guessing he qualifies under nasa guidelines as someone unfit for space travel , at least in my world where the sky is blue .
liv tyler is pretty and humourless , as always ; suspiciously , four of her father 's band 's ( " aerosmith " ) songs grace the soundtrack .
director michael bay lays the visual and sound effects on thick , like ketchup , eventually drowning the movie on - screen .
( the middle hour is a non - sensical , pyrotechnic assault on the average primate 's brain . )
whenever someone dies in this movie , a crew member inevitably yells out " we lost ( insert dead person 's last name here ) !
"
i must admit that not once could i distinguish a dead oil - guy - cum - astronaut from a live one , and close - ups of the corpses ' faces beneath cracked helmets provided little assistance , as their skin was often covered in fake blood .
armageddon is not as terrible movie as godzilla .
it looks nicer , and has fewer plot - holes within its equally ludicrous framework .
it has a vivid soundmix .
but at almost two - and - a - half hours , i could not believe how little actually happened over the course of the story .
the love story has been played up in the ads , perhaps hoping to catch people before they recover from titanic - fever .
bollocks !
the lovers in the film are miles apart throughout - erase all thoughts of nude sketching or car - sex and replace them with obligatory shots of liv tyler tearing up while ben affleck dicks around in a moon - crawler .
remember a little film called jaws ?
in this film , three independent - minded men suddenly found themselves on a fishing boat in pursuit of a deadly shark .
they did n't much like each other at first ; eventually , they started to respect one another .
one of jaws ' great scenes involved the would - be - ahabs drinking and singing songs and telling stories .
this is the sort of male - bonding foreign to bay or his producer , jerry bruckheimer , who throw too many characters into the mix and expect we 'll care about them on the grounds that the world is about to end .
not once do we get the feeling that these characters are even acquaintances - i'd be surprised if these actors bothered to introduce themselves to one another before " action " was called .
a male friend who loved the film suggested to me that perhaps i can not relate to a bunch of men who do n't bare their souls , who believe in dying macho concepts like heroism and a kind of chest - beating bravery .
to this , i will respond that the boys in armageddon are neither heroic , nor brave , nor smart , even : this team could n't build a birdhouse .
and if i get no respect for disliking a movie with all the synthetic feeling of a trailer - a trailer for a movie written by a team of body - builders and greeting card authors - i've never been a prouder wimp my whole life .

SOLUTION:
N