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

[Q]: battlefield
long , boring and just plain stupid battlefield earth a film review by michael redman copyright 2000 by michael redman in my mid - teen years , i had a horrendous re - occurring nightmare .
behind the wheel of a car , i was driving down a straight road in the middle of a desert .
no scenery except the horizon line and the converging parallel lines of the highway .
no matter what i did , the view did n't change : travelling but not getting anywhere .
each time i awoke in a sweat , terrified .
you do n't have to be carl jung to understand that dream .
powerless to make changes , trapped in a boring situation with no hope of rescue
, this is the stuff of nightmares whether we are asleep or awake .
this is exactly how you will feel 15 minutes after " battlefield earth " begins .
for all of its flash and style , l . ron hubbard 's science fiction epic is the earliest and best entry for the dullest summer film of 2000 . dull " and " stupid
.
in the year 3000 , the psychlo aliens have ruled our planet for 1 , 000 years .
humans either work as slave labor in mining operations or live as barbarians .
there 's no hope .
the future is bleak .
then the psychlo make a mistake and capture feisty jonnie goodboy tyler ( barry pepper ) who organizes a revolution against chief of security terl ( john travolta ) and the alien race .
it 's an archetypal post - apocalyptic plot full of promise .
considering some of the talent involved and all the millions thrown at the screen , it 's difficult to see how it could have failed so miserably .
but it does .
the story is so full of holes that it falls apart within minutes of the opening credits .
are we really supposed to believe that after a millennium of looking for gold , the psychlo never discovered fort knox ? or that fighter planes are still in pristine condition after all that time -- and gassed up ? or that the cavemen become such expert pilots in seven days that they can easily down the advanced alien ships ? or that the psychlo spy cameras somehow do n't notice that their slaves are missing for days ?
travolta prances across the screen hamming it up for all he 's worth and is almost entertaining .
almost .
the rest of the actors are wooden mannequins trying not to laugh while delivering lines that no person -- " man - animal " or not -- would ever utter .
some of the film
_ looks
_ good , but it also looks so familiar .
a race of large hulking ape - like creatures has taken over the world while our cities lie in ruin .
sound like something charlton heston might be in ?
the psychlo look like overweight klingons in gear from " dune " .
the final air battle between the air force fighters and the psychlo ships in their high - tech city is something george lucas might have been associated with .
it 's too loud .
it 's too oppressive .
it 's too slow .
it 's too long .
. .
far too long .
and on it goes .
the list of the problems with " battlefield earth " is endless .
it 's difficult to find anything in the film that does work .
oh yeah .
the color scheme is nice .
the real question is how this movie ever got made .
could it have something to do with the fact that l . ron hubbard was the founder of scientology ?
and that john travolta is a member of the church .
that might explain why travolta bought the rights to the novel years ago .
but it does n't give us a clue as to why first - time screenwriter corey mandell 's atrocious script was used .
or why the high - profile project was entrusted with roger christian who had never before directed a major film .
or why no one looked at this thing before it was released and realized there might be problems .
the one bright spot is that no longer will kevin costner 's " the postman " ( which i begrudgingly admit as a guilty pleasure ) be " the " big budget science fiction failure .
" battlefield earth " has the honor sewed up .
often reviewers will recommend that you skip mediocre films and wait for the video .
that 's not the case here .
you can act now and make the decision to not see it on the big screen or on the small one .
do n't hesitate .
strike now while the iron is cold .
[A]: N


[Q]: in 1990 , the surprise success an unheralded little movie called ghost instantly rescued the moribund careers of its trio of above - the - title stars , patrick swayze , demi moore , and whoopi goldberg .
eight years later , moore and goldberg 's careers are n't exactly thriving , but they have had their share of screen successes since ; the same ca n't be said of swayze , who has just added yet another turkey to his resume with the aptly named black dog .
forget the mortal kombat movies -- this trucksploitation flick is the closest the movies has come to video games .
good truck driver jack crews ( swayze ) must drive a cargo of illegal firearms from atlanta to new jersey .
along the way , jack and his crew of three run into a number of obstacles -- such as a highway weigh station , evil truckers , and deadly uzi - firing motorcyclists .
every so often , like at the end of a video game " level " or " stage , " the main baddie pops up : red ( meat loaf , fresh from the triumph of spice world ) , who wants to steal the cache of guns .
just in
case you forget his name or have trouble keeping track of who 's driving what , all of red 's vehicles , be it a pickup or a big rig , are painted -- you guessed it --
red .
i could go into more of the plot specifics ( such as jack 's dream of having a nice home with his family , the past trauma that sent him to prison and cost him his trucking license , the fbi / atf crew tracking the cargo ) , but they are of little importance .
all that matters to director kevin hooks and writers william mickelberry and dan vining are the obstacles jack confronts in his drive from point a to point b .
but they fail at even this modest goal , for none of the highway chaos , as credibly staged as it is , is terribly interesting , let alone exciting .
once you 've seen a couple of trucks bang against each other or a big rig explode the first time
, you 've seen it every time .
as dreary as black dog is as an entertainment ,
the saddest part about the film has nothing to do with what shows up onscreen ; it 's that swayze has to reduce himself to such work .
while far from the best of actors , he is certainly not horrible , and he is a charismatic presence .
i do n't know if it 's his judgment or the dearth of quality job offers that leads him to involve himself with bombs such as black dog .
regardless , if he continues on this career track , could a tv series be far behind ?
[A]: N


[Q]: in " the sweet hereafter , " writer / director atom egoyan takes us beyond the tragedy of death into the tragedy of living .
he shows us how it is n't dying that hurts , but rather
the pain of living in the hereafter of death , and dealing with the loss and grief that it brings .
on a cold winter day in a small , isolated town in british columbia , a school bus full of children slides off the highway and onto a frozen lake , where it cracks through the ice and sinks .
fourteen children die , and numerous others are hurt .
for the residents of this small town , all of whose children were on that bus , it is an earth - shattering event that resolutely alters their lives .
they have always relied on each other in the past to deal with heartache and pain , but it seems that this tragedy is more than they can handle .
alberta and risa walker , who own a local motel and lost their child in the accident , hire an attorney named mitchell stephens ( ian holm ) to bring a lawsuit against someone , anyone for responsibility .
the bus driver , dolores driscoll ( gabrielle rose ) , is a kindly woman who loved the children and , although she lives with a burden of guilt , is not held responsible for the accident .
the bus seems to have simply slipped on some ice , and there was nothing should could do to prevent it .
however , according to stephens , there are no " accidents " in life , and someone will pay for this tragedy , whether that be the manufacturer of the bus or the guardrail the bus broke through .
he goes through the town , approaching the parents who have lost children , asking them to join the class action suit and find vent for their anger .
and , for his work , stephens will receive one - third of the settlement money .
however , it is immediately apparent that stephens has little or no interest in the money .
he is driven by something else , something deeper that he shares in common with the grieving parents .
he has lost a child , too , but not in the same manner .
his daughter , zoe ( caerthan banks ) , who once almost died in his arms as a young child after a spider bite , has been in and out of drug re - hab clinics and detox stations for ten years .
she calls him on an irregular basis , begging him for money , but refusing to tell him what she needs it for .
"
i do n't know who i 'm taking to , " he tells her .
in his mind , his daughter is dead .
the lawsuit is , to stephens , not only a way to mend the town 's pain , but also his own .
however , not everyone in town wants it to happen .
billy ansell ( bruce greenwood ) , who was driving behind the bus when the accident happened and lost two children , wants nothing to do with it .
he has already lost his wife , and he buries his grief in an affair with a married woman .
he does n't want to talk about the accident , and he sees the lawsuit as nothing more than the unnecessary opening of old wounds .
to him , the town should be able to take care of its own pain , and it does n't need outsiders like stephens getting in the way .
central to " the sweet hereafter " is the tale of nicole burnell ( sarah polley ) , a teenage girl who dreams of being a singer before the accident turned her into " a wheelchair girl , " as she puts it . aside from stephens , nicole is the most complex character in the film , and it is she who ultimately decides the fate of the town and how the lawsuit will turn out .
it is also her sad , haunted voice that we often hear on the soundtrack , reading robert browning 's poem about the pied piper , and how when he led all the town 's children away , one was left behind because he was crippled .
obviously , nicole is that child , and she feels somehow betrayed that the rest of the town 's children left her alone by dying in the wreck .
her situation is further complicated because she is involved in a loving , but incestuous relationship with her father ( tom mccamus ) .
there is only one , fleeting scene that suggests this relationship , but it is somehow tied into the final act of the film .
of all the storylines in " the sweet hereafter , " this is the most complicated and unresolved , although its implications stretch throughout the entirety of the film .
egoyan knows that the kinds of questions he brings up have no simple answers -- if any at all -- and he does n't condescend to the audience by trying to neatly wrap it up .
what egoyan has done in " the sweet hereafter " is
really nothing short of miraculous .
in his adaptation of the novel by russell banks , he has made a deeply moving film about a lawyer by transcending the pettiness of law and driving headlong into the deeper meaning of what is loss , and how pitiful monetary and material possessions are when compared to human life .
egoyan has always been a talented , but distant and cerebral filmmaker whose work suffered only in that it felt so cold .
"
the sweet hereafter " is quite the opposite ; egoyan 's stylistic and narrative structures work brilliantly to heighten the impact of the natural emotion , and draw the audience into the tragedy .
"
the sweet hereafter " seems to contain the combined emotional impact that all his other films lacked .
the film is filled with beautiful , subtle performances from all the actors , especially ian holm as the lawyer and sarah polley as the sad child who was left behind .
the beautiful , roving camerawork by paul sarossy and the haunting , melodic musical score by mychael danna ( both previous egoyan collaborators ) give the film a visual and aural cohesiveness with the thematic elements .
like his earlier films , egoyan weaves together multiple storylines that form a blanketing whole .
he works with time as a fluid substance , shifting back and forth between the past , the distant past , and the present with effortless ease .
the actual bus wreck itself does n't happen until midway through the film , but by that time the event has built up so much emotion that egoyan can film it from a distance with no graphic detail , and still have it carry great , devastating weight .
because human life has become such a cheap commodity in movies , it is astounding that egoyan can convey so much heartbreak in such simple , direct terms .
certainly one of the best films of 1997 , " the sweet hereafter " is a deeply rewarding , mystifying , and ultimately human film .
[A]:
P