TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: it 's now the anniversary of the slayings of julie james ' ( jennifer love hewitt ) best friends .
still besieged by nightmarish memories of the man responsible for it all , she seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown .
she ca n't concentrate on her schoolwork , ca n't get a good night 's sleep , and is even frightened by the shadows and the blinking strobe lights at a local dance club .
everywhere she looks , she sees visions of the man in a rubber slicker with the hook on his hand .
in the first movie , ` i know what you did last summer ' , julie and three of her friends accidentally kill a man , running him down while driving down a dark mountain highway .
to cover their misdeed , they dump the body into the ocean .
however , he never quite died and returned to hunt down julie and her friends .
julie and one other , ray ( freddie prinze jr . ) , survived only to make this dismal sequal .
needing some desparate rest and relaxation , she is elated to learn that her college roommate , karla ( brandy ) , has won a trip for four to a secluded tropical island .
accompanying these two girls are karla 's overbearing boyfriend , tyrell ( mehki phifer ) and a potential beau for julie .
but was this contest too good to be true ?
the resort is filled with a skeleton staff that seemed like love boat rejects .
meanwhile , the hotel is practically deserted as the storm season is about to begin .
this presumably creates a venue where they will be secluded and will have no possible means off the island .
eventually , they will be hunted down during power outages and chased around during intense lightning storms .
as you might have guessed , somewhere in the shadows lurk a mysteriously strange figure that is wearing a rubber slicker and wielding a hook .
julie tries to convince her friends that the killer is on the island ( an eerie touch is when she is singing " i will survive " at the karaoke bar and the words scroll " i still know . . . " ) , but her friends chalk it up to paranoia .
but the body count soon starts to rise , and for julie , it 's going to be the worst vacation of her life .
the funny ( yes , i used the word ' funny ' ) thing about this movie is that i heard more chortling and giggling ( maybe it was my giggling ) than i heard screaming .
this movie boils down to a mindless slashfest that never conjures up any amount of wry wit or even a quirky campiness .
there is n't even any suspense that leads up to the deaths .
here 's an appropriate example .
knock - knock .
" housekeeping " , says the diminuitive cleaning lady .
the door suddenly opens up .
slash .
next victim ! is there any reason to go and see this movie ?
not unless you want to see four uninteresting college kids run around in circles for about 90 minutes .
but i do want to say one thing about this movie that satisfied me .
i was thoroughly irritated with tyrell , who incessantly ranted and raved about his sexual libido .
i secretly wished for him to get filleted .
did he get ' hooked ' ?
well , let 's just say that if he did n't , i would give this film a grade of " d " .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: roman emperor marcus aurelius ( richard harris ) chooses his trusted general maximus ( russell crowe ) as his successor .
however the emperor 's evil son commodus ( joaquin phoenix ) murders his father before the announcement can be made , and maximus ( as well as his family ) is sentenced to be executed .
maximus is able to escape his executioners , but is later captured and sold as a slave to proximo ( oliver reed ) .
proximo is looking for gladiators to earn himself money ( he being a former gladiator himself ) , and maximus reluctantly uses his skills to prove himself a powerful gladiator .
when emperor commodus announces that new games will be held in the colisseum , proximo takes his gladiators there to do battle .
maximus sees this as his chance to exact revenge on commodus .
gladiator begins with a great battle sequence between the roman army and germania , and actually is able to maintain interest during the now required " 40 minutes of exposition after a kick ass opening sequence " style of moviemaking .
the only downfall of the opening sequence is the editing style used . . .
it 's choppy slow - motion which is unsettling and distracting .
it 's similar to the opening sequence in saving private ryan , but nowhere near as effective .
the actual gladiator battles are thrilling , but also a bit disjointed .
many times it 's unclear as to exactly what 's going on .
. .
all the audience can tell is that blood is being spilled .
we 're not sure who 's blood or by who 's hand though .
there 's an instance of this earlier in the film too
that 's disappointing .
it 's comes when maximus escapes his executioners .
some flashes and a few quick cuts later and maximus is free . . .
but i still do n't know exactly how he did it .
russell crowe should have become a major star after his gleefully over the top role as a computer generated serial killer in 1995 's virtuosity .
for whatever reason his stardom never arrived . . .
but he should have it now .
from here on moviegoers should now be able to say , " let 's go see the new russell crowe movie " .
he gets the best scene in the film ( and one of the best moments of all recent movies ) when he reveals his identity to commodus in the colisseum .
it 's both rousing and chilling
.
joaquin phoenix
does a very effective job of making commodus a person and not just a cartoon character ( which could have easily happened ) .
commodus is conniving , sneaky and whiny , but phoenix never lets the character get silly .
it 's a very good ( and very creepy ) performance .
oliver reed died during the filming of gladiator , and it 's a huge loss to the acting world .
i 've always been fascinated with reed .
. .
he 's one of those very talented performers who once had a fine career but ended up in direct to video junk during his twilight years .
it 's ironic that this film probably would have gotten him back into real movies again , as he gives a fun and sincere performance .
the film is dedicated to him , and he will surely be missed .
reed 's death presented the filmmakers with an obvious problem , as he still had scenes to be completed . rather than recast the role ( and end up reshooting a great deal of footage ) , a digital version of oliver reed was created at a reported cost of 2 million dollars .
ironically , that was probably more money than reed ever earned for a single film .
anyway , this digital effect is only used in one scene that i am aware of ( for about twenty seconds ) and if you are n't looking for it you wo n't even be able to tell .
some of the other digital effects are less convincing however .
. .
and like i always say , noticable digital effects take me out of a movie immediately .
it 's sad that such a good film has these distractions .
movies like the fall of the roman empire and spartacus seemed to do okay without the use of computer effects .
keep in mind that gladiator is based on real people and real events , but is entirely a work of fiction .
however it 's a work of fiction that 's great entertainment , and
another film to add to the list of damn fine flicks released in 2000 a .
d .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: the spy game is up .
you can thank charlie 's angels -- the movie -- for that .
when did banality and pandering become okay ?
just steal from hong kong , the matrix , and a kitschy tv show from the mid-1970s and that 's a movie ?
charlie 's angels is one of the worst examples of action film homogeneity and shameless duplicity in any film i 've seen in ages .
charlie 's angels is dumb .
just plain dumb .
as we all know , three of the hottest females on the planet -- drew barrymore , cameron diaz , and lucy liu -- are three super - agents working for the mysterious millionaire named charlie .
they all drive fast cars , look oh - so - fabulous even in the morning , and do n't seem to get a scratch even when fighting armed men , having buildings explode ten feet in front of them , or flying through the air in matrix slow - motion . and while the entourage spends 90 minutes romping around in cleavage - busting wetsuits , cleavage - busting waitress uniforms , and cleavage - busting wet t - shirts , they scarcely succeed in resembling so much as a group of annoying , drunk sorority girls , the kind who hit on everybody at a party .
the actual plot revolves around the ridiculous story of a millionaire computer engineer -- the great sam rockwell -- who gets kidnapped by a mysterious rival computer company .
of course , the rival wants control of his new personal identification system , which involves such latter - day buzzwords as gps , cellular tracking , and even mainframe .
the amazing crispin glover lends his acting chops as a crazed henchmen involved in all the nasty things that happen to the angels -- like battling each of them in many round - robin matrix rip - off ( again ) fight sequences and harboring a strange attraction to sliced - off locks of the angels ' hair .
the coup de grace is bill murray as bosley , serving as charlie 's manservant , or , more to the point , the angels ' pimp .
the rest of the movie comprises a revenge arc , enough costume changes to fill three productions of les miserables , carbon - copy fight sequences
that would lend credible evidence to a jackie chan and the wachowski brothers lawsuit for intellectual property theft , and the strange transformation of sam rockwell into mickey rourke 's long - lost brother .
charlie 's angels starts off with a bang and ends up being a soggy burrito left out overnight
.
nothing is difficult , plausible , or believable in any of the angels ' actions .
it feels like the matrix , mission : impossible 2 , and cleopatra jones and the casino of gold all rolled into one .
diaz is a knucklehead .
barrymore is the " dangerous one , " mean and tough and about as believable as katie holmes in the role .
liu is just . . .
lucy liu , looking good in a skin - tight black leather suit .
the list of movies from which charlie 's angels is directly lifted is equally astonishing .
the writers apparently ran the copier all night stealing scenes from armageddon , lethal weapon ii , all of jackie chan 's movies , the great escape , saturday night fever , revenge of the nerds , payback , darkman , dr .
no , the matrix ( as mentioned ) , and even tv 's friends .
it 's a shame , too , because one of the many screenwriters , john august , was at the helm of last year 's favorite , go .
then again , what can you expect from a director known solely as " mcg .
" there is no camp value in the film , no interesting main characters , no invigorating action scenes , no reason at all to waste your time
except to ogle the hot chicks and enjoy the performances of a few supporting players .
note to hollywood :
next time , let 's leave the tv shows on the tv .

SOLUTION:
N