In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

Q: writing a screenplay for a thriller is hard .
harder than pouring concrete under the texas sun . harder than building a bridge over troubled waters . and incidentally , a whole heck of a lot harder than writing a movie review .
thrillers are all variations on a theme .
you have a smart , resourceful , and powerful bad guy , who has a goal he has to meet .
you have a noble and brave good guy , who has to protect the innocent , kill the bad guy , and not get killed himself in the process .
the trick of thriller writing is doing all of this in an interesting and novel manner .
this simple formula can lead to classic movies like north by northwest , high noon , or silence of the lambs , or big summer blockbusters like men in black , the fugitive , or air force one , or it can lead to utter dreck like masterminds , event horizon , kull the conqueror .
.. . is anyone else getting depressed here ?
point is , it 's not enough to follow the formula .
you 've got to throw in something extra , something good and new and better than the last version .
something to surprise and move all of us people who buy the tickets and the popcorn and the happy meals .
this is a hard thing to do , but it is absolutely necessary in every way .
without that something extra -- whether it 's a great plot or a well - written screenplay , or great special effects or great locations or great casting or great performances or great big hungry dinosaurs -- the movie fails .
that 's why the jackal , with all its starpower , with all its budget , with all its hype , gets a big fat f. bruce willis is the bad guy , the jackal , a legendary killer for hire .
richard gere is the good guy , a former ira assassin with a vendetta against the jackal .
the jackal is trying to kill someone .
gere is trying to stop him .
will gere be able to stop the assassination in time and kill the jackal ?
( i 'll give you three guesses , and the first two do n't count . )
there are no surprises awaiting the audience in the jackal , no moment when you say to yourself , " i wonder what happens next ?
"
the script for the jackal is n't ripped straight from today 's headlines .
it 's ripped off , straight from an episode of millennium .
throughout the movie , we learn what the jackal 's plans are and how he intends to accomplish them .
no surprise .
the fun of a movie like this should come from richard gere figuring out what the jackal 's plan is and developing a clever plan to foil the bad guy .
instead , we get two ( count 'em , two ) scenes where gere is sitting in an fbi conference room somewhere and instantly divines the jackal 's plan just as if he 's frank black ( or more likely , just as if he 's been handed a copy of the script ) .
and we never get more than a superficial clue as to why gere has had this flash of insight .
it 's like gere 's character is psychic , but neither he nor the fbi ( or the screenwriters ) seem to know it .
and just like in millennium , the bad guy has an overwhelming need to go after the people the good guy cares about , whether or not they are important to what he 's trying to do or not .
what 's more , in the last half of the movie , the jackal , supposedly a super - smart professional terrorist who never makes a mistake , comes down with a major case of the stupids .
as for the performances .
.. bruce willis manages to get through the whole movie without a wisecrack , which is a major achievement , but not enough reason to see the movie .
his disguises are good , but not as good or as interesting as val kilmer 's in the saint .
richard gere is made to talk the entire movie in an irish accent , which detracts from his otherwise lifeless and dull performance .
sidney poitier is probably the most disappointing element in a overwhelmingly disappointing movie -- not that his performance is bad or anything , it 's not , but it is sad that hollywood wo n't use this talented actor in any part other than an fbi agent ( shoot to kill , sneakers ) .
writing a good plot and a good screenplay , like i said , is hard , but it can be done .
it was n't done here .
it is our job as consumers to reward good screenplays and to denounce bad and uninteresting ones .
do not go see this movie .
you 'll only encourage the producers to make more just like it .
instead , stay home and rent day of the jackal , or in the line of fire , or a fire safety video , for crying out loud .
anything other than the jackal , which lives up to its name by gnawing the dead bones of other , better movies .

A: N
****
Q: i do n't expect much from eddie murphy these days .
for the past four years , the gods of cinema -- or the expansive payrolls of studio conglomerates -- have allowed him to make one bad movie after another .
such films as metro , doctor dolittle , holy man , life , and bowfinger have reduced a once great comedic persona to a living and breathing washed - up hack performing as a studio puppet for 20th century fox and universal pictures .
the biggest shame to fall on his shoulders is his newest film , nutty professor ii : the klumps .
the klumps once again revisits the life of sherman klump , an overweight university science professor looking for love in all the wrong places .
sherman has just invented a new " youth drink " that enables man or beast to become younger for a short period of time .
janet jackson is the love interest who chooses the lovable sherman for a soul mate rather than excel at her career as a university professor ( and for the most ridiculous reasons ) .
with love on his mind , sherman is determined to rid himself of his alter ego , buddy love from the first professor , who still resides with vigor inside his psyche and causes sherman to act like a bad imitation of vince vaughn from swingers .
with some convoluted mumbo - jumbo about dna extraction , sherman extracts the " buddy love " link in his dna and smartly deposits buddy into a handy - dandy lab beaker .
but one night , the beaker is knocked over and buddy love is regenerated . . .
because every movie like this needs an unnecessary villain to thwart the good guy .
then the klump family , all played by eddie murphy , step in for some comedic relief involving old people having sex , flabby breasts , a slew of fart and dick jokes , and enough fat people jokes that i lost count after the first thirty minutes .
and did i mention the part where larry miller gets anally raped by an overgrown hamster ?
the movie finally dissolves into a really bad hallmark family special about realizing who you are and what you can be in this world -- with enough soft lighting and people on the verge of tears in every scene .
pure and simple ,
the klumps is a failure .
its script was handled by not one but five screenwriters , and it really shows during the awkward transitions between scenes .
any sense of story and plot were lost in the rewrite process .
it 's more discerning to learn that chris weitz and paul weitz , the team behind one of the funniest films of the last decade , american pie , have their names stamped to this trash .
hey guys - quick
note - keep this movie off of your resumes .
the characterization of sherman 's family , the klumps , is one of the most ignorant stereotypes of a black family i have ever seen in cinema .
everyone member of the family is a large person who wipes the bins clean at a local buffet restaurant like pigs at a trough .
the grandma is an oversexed fiend who constantly talks of ways to pleasure her man and her sagging breasts .
the father is gruff , is fired from a blue - collar job , is sexually inadequate , and can not communicate with his family about his feelings .
the mother is ignorant of all the negativity around her and seems to hold no opinion about anything or anyone .
the brother is silent and brooding and resembles the ice cube gangster character from boyz in the hood .
sherman himself is terribly insecure and never conveys anything for the audience to become attached to .
but the main problem with the film is its inability to create any type of convincing conversational or situational comedy .
the family scenes from the first nutty professor worked so well because their conversations were short and direct .
and you got the feeling that these crass people could n't act like this all the time .
the sequel does the reverse and drives the negatives of the klumps right in to the hilt , making the first five minutes of their interaction enjoyable and the last 55 or so unbearable and pathetic .
after a while , their conversations just become a barrage of frustrated anger tinged with indecency and overworked premises that end up drawing energy away from any type of empathy one might feel for the central themes of the story .
its also a damn shame that the makeup magic of rick baker -- who worked on the original nutty professor and won an academy award for his work on an american werewolf in london -- and amazing digital special effects that enabled murphy to interact with himself in such beautiful motions are built around such a lame story line .
even the best effects ca n't seem to save the most pathetic of movies these days .
now that i think about it ,
the worst thing about this film has to be all the money that it will make .
people will be lined up around the block for it .
the studios will concoct the a sequel for release in the summer of 2002 .
eddie murphy will be signed up to take not just one role or five roles , but he 'll play every character in the movie .
i just ca n't wait to see eddie murphy in a love scene with himself .

A: N
****
Q: plot summary : the year is 2024 .
the ozone layer has long since gone and the earth is now protected from radiation by a shield invented by connor mccleod .
the shield , although saving lives , has made the atmosphere hot and humid .
connor is a mortal and a tired old man who has given up hope .
on returning from the opera one night connor is accosted by the leader of a " terrorist " organisation .
they have tried to find out what the company that now runs the shield unit are covering up .
connor is then attacked by two assassins sent by katana from the planet zeist ( like zeit -- get it ? ) .
they fail and connor becomes immortal again by chopping their heads off .
he then brings ramirez back to life in glencoe in scotland .
both ramirez and connor are rebel leaders back on zeist and have been sent to earth as punishment .
connor now has the option to return being the last one but opts to stay with his new found immortality and fight to find out about the company and the shield .
katana meanwhile , fearing connor would return , sets out himself to kill the highlander .
if you have never seen it . being a fan of highlander and mr .
connery , i was in the cinema as soon as i could to see highlander ii :
the quickening .
i wish it had been quicker .
i feel whatever else you can say about a film ( bad script bad music , etc . ) if you sit just plain bored through most of it then nothing much else needs to be said .
the film was short but in my opinion only twelve minutes or so
( the time mr .
connery is on the screen for ) is worth watching .
the plot sounds a little ridiculous but i was willing to give it a chance .
maybe they could pull it off .
instead , i find that the characters have completely changed from those in the first film .
it 's as if they are different people with the same names .
witness connor jumping into bed with the leader of the resistance -- where is the attitude of " who wants to live forever , when love must die " gone to ?
the love sub - plot
* must * have had footage cut out .
the highlander and ramirez both seemed aware of powers they had never mentioned before .
putting our heroes in deadly situations and then having them walk away because of some new power is very annoying .
i still want to know why connor 's coat becomes flame proof when he is immortal !
we are not given enough time on zeist to believe in it , nor are we told why advanced aliens still use swords to kill .
why not dynamite or laser saws or just plain bullets followed by a quick chop to the neck ?
i know the head needs to come off
but you could at least immobilise your opponent with laser rifles first .
to be fair one assassin tried this
but he must be the world 's worst shot .
meanwhile connor develops luke - skywalker - like powers of laser beam deflection .
as for " bad guys , " we see a rebellion on zeist , crushed easier than a grape and then the rest of the plot depends on katana being obsessed with killing mccleod in case he returns to zeist .
two assassins are sent , presumably they are meant to be good at killing but an aged connor kills them both with no problems .
no more assassins are sent .
katana , supposedly a very powerful man goes himself to kill connor .
has he no more assassins ?
has he no better ?
why was the rebellion crushed so easily then ?
michael ironside is totally unconvincing
( bring back the kurgan ) .
he seems like a cartoon character and really is n't that evil , just stupid and violent .
we see the hollywood trick of the chief nasty threatening a child again and killing lots of innocents .
yet he still seems like no threat -- perhaps because he seems too stupid to threaten connor , or maybe because his two best assassins would n't have been amiss with larry , curly and mo .
so much for plot and characters .
the music is atrocious .
it is at best intrusive and at worst annoying . bring back queen .
there was an audible sigh ( of relief ? )
when connor played a queen track in a juke box .
i believe this at least is to be corrected for the american release .
the acting is at best flat , except for mr .
connery .
lambert is uninteresting and when he delivered " there can be only one " this time around it
just made me wish there had only been one -- highlander .
michael ironside is unconvincing
; sorry , michael , i usually like you and everyone else was incredibly forgetable .
so why 2/10 ?
visually the film is interesting at all times .
it has a blade runner feel to it and some of the special effects are quite stunning .
add to this an irrepressible sean connery who smiles throughout the whole film -- or is he smirking to himself ?
his lines and delivery might make the film worthwhile
had it not been so obvious that he can not take the whole thing seriously at all
but hey
--
*
i 'd * have done it for 12 million .
oh , and i agree with a previous reviewer
, she * does * look like sharon stone but i believe it is her first film .
incidentally there is a line producer credited and i hear rumours of highlander iii : the wizard .

A:
N
****