instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
paul verhoeven , the dutch auteur who dragged his violent , sexually aggressive aesthetic into american film , has never been what i 'd consider a thoughtful director ( though some of his films , notably starship troopers , have been lauded as artistic achievements ) , but he is the kind of hollywood film maker who 's managed to , no matter what the budget , make his films distinctive and even sometimes smuggle stimulating themes into the lavish high concepts on which he toils .
starship troopers was essentially a b - monster movie remake of his enthralling dutch war film soldier of orange ( a great film that 's nearly impossible to find on video , yet showgirls is everywhere ) , in which he cast a troop of stunningly attractive mannequins ; the square jawed casper van dien and denise richards ( who may actually be 45 % silicone ) , in what feels like an american propaganda picture set to monotonous scenes of graphic carnage .
it 's not a completely successful film , but
as a failure
it 's certainly an interesting ( and mostly entertaining ) one .
my favorite verhoeven films were the ones he made before he hit our shores ; spetters , a dark near pornographic coming of age film set within the sub - culture of drag racing and the aforementioned soldier of orange ( have n't yet gotten around to seeing the 4th man or turkish delight ) .
i believe his best hollywood film to be robocop , a bleak super - hero satire with a robotic hero that 's as touching as schwarzenegger 's in t2 .
that movie was violent but not in the overdone cartoonish manner of more recent verhoeven pics .
its violence seemed to be there for a purpose , namely to create an atmosphere of unpredictable dread , not to simply titillate an attention deprived audience .
there 's a jaw - dropping scene within the first ten minutes of robocop wherein the lead villain toys with a cop before snuffing him .
he tortures the officer by taking glee in his victim 's every fearful tic .
it 's a startling moment of barbaric , maddening violence that effectively sets the tone for the film that could be designated as splatter punk - noir .
in hollow man kevin bacon brutally slays a dog because it just wo n't shut up , he impales a co - worker , drowns another and so on .
but why ?
his character is introduced as a smug genius , the kind who 's always impeccably dressed and races a sports car while generic rock tunes blare from his stereo for the world to hear , sort of like a scheming uber villain from dallas or melrose place , though once the character becomes invisible , this film has him pull a 180 shift into a psychotic movie monster .
the kind who just wo n't die .
hollow man 's protagonists are the completely bland but beautiful scientist linda ( elizabeth shue , acting as if she were rebecca of sunnybrook farm ) and her lover , a hunk of beef scientist played by josh brolin who 's saddled with the film 's worst lines
( " i 've lost cohesion again ! " ) .
they 're a typical aaron spelling couple , good - looking but as vacant as george
w .
bush 's republican national convention speech ( i .
e .
bush referring to clinton ; " ? ?
?
so much promise ? ? ?
but to what end ?
to what end ?
"
-- this actually got applause !
suddenly warren beatty does n't look so absurd ) .
the rest of the film 's characters are all well past thirty , though act like annoying high school party animals insulting one and other with a series of strained one - liners
; is it just me or have
labored insults become big budget hollywood 's new character developing technique ?
ahh , what a cynical time we live in ? ? ?
as the picture opens we meet cain ( kevin bacon ) , an egocentric scientist working with the crew of aforementioned irritating scientists on a top secret ( so top secret the government has only provided them with a dilapidated warehouse in which to perform their extensive experimentation 's ) project with the goal to make invisibility a possibility ( for what purpose is never hinted at ) .
they 've performed several experiments on animals and have nearly solved the quandary causing caine , in a twist worthy of the film 's 1950 's late show origins , to impulsively experiment on himself .
caine neglects to let the pentagon in on his plans and somehow gets two of his co - workers to lie for him
so the rest of the crew will think the pentagon gave the go ahead .
our mad scientist is turned invisible ( after several fx - heavy complications ) , then he inexplicably
( it 's hinted that the process of invisibility has made the animals into more savage creatures , but this is never explored , and if that was the case why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to test this out on a human ? ) begins raping , assaulting and murdering anyone he pleases , always with a lame wisecrack ready a la freddy krueger .
it grows abundantly clear with each new release that it 's verhoeven 's films that have become hollow .
like the rest , this one is cold , heartless , and full of contempt for humanity , but in addition to all that it lacks any trace of wit , insight and makes no statement other than " audiences will pay for anything these days " .
it 's an affront to anyone looking for something stimulating on an intellectual level , or even those hoping to spend a saturday night with a fun , thrill - a - minute ride .
verhoeven has instead served up an utterly routine mad slasher flick with nobody to root for and no reason to care .
the previews make hollow man look like an irresistible flick .
how can one not have a good time at a film that utilizes state of the art fx to illustrate an invisible man getting down and dirty with his bad self ?
a couple weeks ago , after seeing the trailer , a bunch of friends and i got into a long discussion of how invisible man flicks never go so far as to have the invisible individual indulging in their newfound ability .
hollow man looked like the first film to do so and whoa , in a serious manner to boot .
but oh yeah , it is directed by paul verhoven not atom egoyan or peter greenway .
verhoeven delivers the sleazy " goods " , but not in a watchable or thrillingly disturbing manner , here
it just feels icky and uncomfortable .
the director keeps his camera trained at his nubile actresses , caressing their breasts with his lens all while faux - psycho music strains in the background .
it 's plainly obvious that verhoeven is n't exploring voyeurism ( like in the classic peeping tom ) but exploiting it and not even doing that very well .
it 's funny that with all the technology $ 90 million can get you verhoven is stuck at trying to figure out how to show a woman 's naked breast manipulated by an invisible hand .
most vexing is that the invisibility aspect is used simply as gimmick in yet another slasher movie wherein characters do stupid things just so the villain can pop up for more attacks .
in fact it 's largely irrelevant that bacon is invisible since , by the end , most of his potential victims don infer - red glasses that track his body heat .
as in every mad slasher film we get the killers pov ( a scene where he spies on his neighbor while she undresses triggered unpleasant memories of slumber party massacre ) , and lots of scenes where people are unknowingly stalked .
the film only provides one moment that i found genuinely creepy .
it happens when a lab assistant ( kim dickens , who looks like she stepped out of playboy ) in the middle of a chit chat with an invisible bacon , suddenly pauses .
"
are you looking at me ? " , she queries , obviously haunted .
it 's a little moment in a big film with nothing to offer but
ground breaking special effects set to a plot that should have run its course by 1982 ( the apex of the mad slasher craze ) .
those special effects are so stunning they alone keep this from being as bad as urban legend or i still know what you did last summer .
and they 're the only reason to check out hollow man , preferably as a mid - week bargain rental .
you 've been warned .
but you probably wo n't listen , will you ?
tis ' a pity ? ? ?
answer:
N


question:
zero effect gets its title from the main character , daryl zero ( bill pullman ) , although we do n't understand what it truly means until the very last line of dialogue in the film .
zero is a private investigator , perhaps the best private investigator who ever lived ( at least he 'd like to think so ) .
however , he 's a socially inept being , and eccentric in every possible way -- this fact certainly makes his talents as a private eye even more bewildering than they already are .
zero 's accomplice is steve arlo ( ben stiller ) , a " normal " guy who does the business side of the job -- he 's the one who actually speaks to clients and explains zero 's greatness as an investigator .
the opening scene has steve explaining the many virtues of zero 's talents to soon - to - be client gregory stark ( ryan o'neal ) .
it turns out that stark has lost a key to a safe deposit box , and is now being blackmailed for something that he apparently knows nothing about .
zero takes the case , and the plot thickens .
his path leads to a young , pretty paramedic named gloria sullivan ( kim dickens ) .
despite her luminous and seemingly - harmless presence , she turns out to be the one blackmailing stark .
through his investigations , zero learns why , but not without developing feelings for gloria -- feelings that , because of his reclusive behavior , are new and confusing to him .
i have no particular affinity towards the mystery genre of film .
i can idly enjoy movies about private investigators , and , every once in a while , a film like chinatown comes a long that blows me away ( actually , no private eye film has ever reached chinatown 's greatness ) .
zero effect , which is jake kasdan 's first effort as writer / director , is a film about a private investigator that succeeds in all attempts :
it 's
an original , funny , and completely involving motion picture .
with so many cliches available to this genre , i find it amazing that kasdan avoided all of them .
but he did n't just successfully avoid flaws
: he has created a great film here , one that had me interested and fascinated from the first shot to the final moment .
take , for starters ,
the great cast of characters .
pullman is terrific as zero , showing a comic flair that i really have n't seen from him since spaceballs .
zero is the kind of guy who seems at ease switching personalities so frequently as he does here ; the fact that he 's an almost exaggeratedly twisted , emotionally unstable man outside of his profession is not at all difficult to believe .
pullman 's performance is much more layered than it might seem at first glance , and the occasional voice - over as he 's going through the motions of his job are insightful and often hilarious
.
ben stiller is also a very funny individual ; he 's the kind of comedian who makes normal lines sound funny .
"
i 'll shoot you , " he says to stark at one point .
"
i have a gun , and everything .
" his character is also well - drawn , with an interesting subplot involving his girlfriend ( angela featherstone ) who is not happy with the extensive amounts of time he must spend away from her due to the unpredictability of his job .
o'neal also gives his character a bit of depth ; and kim dickens , last seen ( and underused ) in mercury rising , gets a chance to show us her talent here , giving gloria the realism this kind of character really needs .
i find zero effect to be an immensely funny and witty film .
kasdan 's humor is of the best kind --
soft spoken , and mostly dialogue - driven ( though
there are some great visual jokes ) .
it 's the kind of humor that 's funny even after you 've seen it five or six times .
there 's one scene in which zero talks about how detached he is , an how that makes him such a great detective .
what we see during this narration are various shots of him sitting on a bed , or standing motionlessly , with his hair destroyed and an utterly blank look painted on his unshaven face , his eyes pointing to something off camera , but obviously to nothing in particular .
i ca n't convey to you how funny this is , but what makes it great film making is that it has a point -- scenes like this are frequent , and they provide solid characterization of zero .
as a side note , i do n't consider myself an average viewer when it comes to comedy ( not to sound elitist ) -- i find things funny
that many do not , and vice versa .
there was a clump of people near me in the theater laughing uproariously through this film , and the rest of the theater was relatively silent through most of it .
i have a feeling the humor here wo n't appeal to everyone , but there 's certainly enough story and character development to keep anyone 's interest .
jake kasdan , son of writer / director lawrence kasdan , is only 22 years old .
i found this out after seeing the film , and i ca n't remember ever being so impressed with a film maker .
his direction is stylish without being pretentious , and his writing is mature , full , and developed .
zero effect is the kind of film that i 'll buy for my collection
-- smart , original films like this are rare as it is , but this one actually has a heart and a soul
.
at the end of the film , i was involved in the characters , and
i was satisfied with the outcome .
and , with kasdan 's undeniable talent at such a young age , all i can do is hope to see a lot more from him in the future .
answer:
P


question:
this
talky , terribly - plotted thriller stars alec baldwin as dave robicheaux , an ex - new orleans cop who gets ensnared in a murder- mystery after a light - plane crashes into the bayou beside his fishing boat .
he and his wife annie ( kelly lynch ) rescue a little salvadorian girl ( samantha lagpacan ) from the wreckage and that 's when the trouble begins .
the other major players include a local drug lord ( eric roberts ) , his scheming wife ( teri hatcher ) , a soused stripper ( mary stuart masterson ) , and a shady dea agent ( vondie curtis hall ) .
everyone knows everyone else and it makes for a collective that 's curious but never compelling .
based on the book by james lee burke , heaven 's prisoners is so badly plotted that entire * scenes * seem to be missing .
early on , we have no idea of why dave and annie keep the child to themselves .
nor how they eluded both the coast guard and the faa .
later , dave is reunited with a drug - abuser who appears seemingly clean and sober and without any explanation .
huh ?
the whole movie is like this , perhaps the result of some unkind cuts that happened during the eighteen months that the film sat on the shelf .
whatever the reason , somebody should tell director phil joanou ( final analysis ) to recut this mess .
in its present form , heaven 's prisoners runs only two hours plus change , but it feels like four .
answer:

N