TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: dear god , this is a fantastically bad film !
regardless of what i say about knock off , you ca n't grasp its awfulness from my words .
you have to see it and experience it for yourself .
here 's the kicker , though -- i suggest that you do so .
yes , this is a bad film -- easily one of the most incompetent films of the year --
but it has a certain misguided charm that makes it a unique kind of disaster to endure
.
in fact , i enjoyed myself for most of its brief running time , despite the dreadful acting and a completely incomprehensible story
.
do n't get me wrong : i 'm not excusing knock off .
it reaches an unacceptable level of badness ; it 's so incoherent that i wonder if it was hacked up worse than the avengers was .
it also features some truly terrible performances from lela rochon , michael wong , paul sorvino , and -- of course -- jean - claude van damme .
it does , however , have the entertaining presence of rob schneider , and the excessively inventive and pretentious direction of tsui hark .
as i watched it , i occasionally wondered if it was aware of its own awfulness .
now , in retrospect , it seems clear that it was n't , but it 's still a fascinating kind of mess .
i do n't like writing plot descriptions ( it is , by far , the most boring part of writing a review ) , but , in this case , i 'm off the hook : there is no way i could write an accurate synopsis for knock off .
for the sake of comparison , i had no trouble understanding the usual suspects during my first viewing .
i paid closer attention to knock off , and the only thing i am able to say about it is that van damme plays a dude named ray , and is accused by the cia ( i think ) of selling
knock off products ( knock off products are , of course , products that look like name - brand materials but are generic and cheap ) .
i do n't know what any of this has to do with martial arts , but there are lots of martial arts in the film .
ray is good at martial arts , so when he has to beat up bad guys , there 's no problem .
rob schneider plays his sidekick , although i had no idea who he really was by the end of the film .
lela rochon is just some woman who accuses them of stuff , while paul sorvino is both the good guy and the bad guy at once !
in fact , every character goes through so many shifts from good to bad that the end provides absolutely no insight into what any of them really do .
in that order , knock off is completely incoherent and makes absolutely no sense .
but what a strange mess
it is .
it was written by stephen e .
de souza , who also wrote die hard and 48 hours .
can this be the same man ?
i do n't see how , unless , of course , huge chunks of the film have been removed for the sake of running time .
knock off seems to have an interesting premise ( as far as action films go ) , but there 's no semblance here .
for instance , van damme is introduced , and then seconds later he 's running a chariot race through the streets of hong kong .
why ?
who knows .
what are the implications of this ?
i have no idea .
most action films abandon depth in favor of action , and this is normally a problem .
knock off , however , is the first film that i would have preferred to see with all of the talky sequences cut .
the acting is embarrassingly bad :
rochon , in particular , delivers each of her lines with stiff and talentless insincerity .
sorvino , in addition , deserves better than this .
van damme is bad , but he 's charming in that bad way , and so i ca n't say that he 's hard to watch ( although i rarely understood what he was saying ) .
the only exception is rob schneider , who is actually quite funny a lot of the time .
tsui utilizes so many tricks that he makes john woo look tame by comparison .
they 're all pointless gimmicks
though , such as shots of the inner - workings of a knock off running shoe .
but his action scenes are never boring :
one particular piece inside of a fruit factory ( a fruit factory ? ) is well - choreographed .
lots of the scenes are pitched well to comedy , such as our heroes ' first encounter with the rochon character .
but did tsui know that his film is beyond ludicrous
?
i hope he did , for the alternative is a frightening thought .
knock off has the feel of a truly terrible exercise in camp mania .
if it were boring , i 'd give it zero stars .
but it 's not boring :
it 's loud and excessive and completely incoherent .
it 's also funny , even when it is n't meaning to be funny .
a bad film that succeeds as entertainment does n't deserve to be fully lambasted .
i recognize knock off for its irrefutable badness , but i ca n't deny it 's zany , useless charm .
oh , i know , they 're just action scenes looking desperately for a real story , but they 're fun action scenes amongst a crowd of laughably inane concepts .
it 's fun to admire
the awfulness of a film like this , but that does n't excuse the fact that it is , indeed , awful .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: hollywood has really done the whole dracula thing to death ( no pun intended - honest ) .
it 's a shame , too , because the good count was probably the most frightening out the old b - movie monsters .
i mean , come on .
are people really going to get that scared over a big green guy named frankenstein that moves at a speed of five miles per hour ?
hell no .
and not only was the idea of a vampire frightening as hell , but it also carried with it a kind of sensual feeling as well , not commonly associated with horror films .
and not only has the idea been done too many times , but with the possible exception of from dusk ' till dawn , has not been done very well lately , either .
this is precisely why
it was so much fun for me watching the original nosferatu .
i got to go back to the times when making movies ( even horror movies ) was considered an art form , and not just done to make cash like nowadays .
and that is exactly what this film is ; art .
i 've been a horror fan since i was eight years old , and to this day
i have not seen any horror film cover the intellectual ground that this film covers
.
let me backtrack a minute .
when i say " intellectual ground " , i do n't mean that nosferatu tackles philosophical questions or anything like that , i just mean that in order for the film to work the way it was intended to , a little bit of thinking is involved .
with most modern slasher movies like friday the 13th and what - not , you can just simply sit back in your chair and be frightened by the gore that is shown .
those movies could have been made by a fifth grader with a good makeup kit ; movies like this require the viewer to actually pay attention and ponder what is happening on the screen .
you see , this movie has barely any violence in it and even less blood or gore .
this is a thinking man 's slasher flick .
the " nosferatu " of the title is orlock ( max shreck ) , a strange , hermit - like count that , as the film opens , is looking for a new home to buy .
he employs the help of hutter ( gustav von wangenhein ) , a real estate salesman ( or something to that effect ) who has a nice home and even a fiancee named ellen ( greta schroeder ) . upon orders from his boss , hutter treks to the transylvanian mountains to visit orlock 's castle and speak to him about his new home ( which just happens to be right next door to hutter 's ) .
the next morning , he wakes up to find teeth marks on his neck . . .
not really a good sign .
he then discovers through some reading that the count is a " nosferatu " , or vampire , one of the undead that feeds off the blood of living humans .
but by the time he pieces this together , he is too late ; orlock has already embarked to hutter 's hometown via boat .
will hutter reach his destination in time to save his fiancee from the deadly clutches of count orlock ?
the character of orlock is , of course , dracula .
the only only reason his name was changed was because this was an unauthorized account of bram strocker 's novel .
just thought that was an interesting little side note .
. .
probably the only way you will get to see
this fine film is by purchasing a copy of arrow entertainment 's digitally restored cut , now available in stores .
however , this version is quite different than maunau 's original masterpiece .
the movie is now sporting a new soundtrack by band type o - negative and color tinting , much like the 1984 version of lang 's metropolis .
now , i really appreciate what arrow entertainment is trying to do here , bringing a classic like this to the attention of a wider audience that might have otherwise just skipped this one .
but alas
, i like watching movies the way they were originally intended to be seen .
but that 's just my bag
; you may like the newer , more " modern " version better .
either way , i suggest investing your money in a copy .
if you like what they have done with it , pop it in the vcr and enjoy .
if you 're like me , just do what i 'll do during future viewings ; turn the color all the way down on your television , hit mute , turn on some bach or mozart or whatever , dim the lights and prepare to view what is truly one of the greatest films ever made .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: 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 experience 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 blueprints ; it is poorly constructed - harry criticizes almost every aspect of it .
we trust nasa to build space shuttles ? )
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