TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: warner brothers ; rated pg-13 ( mild violence , sexual situations ) ; 132 minutes director : luis mandoki screenplay : gerald di pego ( from the novel by nicholas sparks ) cast : kevin costner , robin wright - penn , paul newman , illeana douglas , robbie coltrane , jesse james , john savage .
review by :
geoff berkshire
i 'm not an overly cynical guy .
there have been many glossy hollywood romances that have carried me away with their romanticism over the years .
however , i have my limits and i also have standards .
this brings us to the subject at hand : message in a bottle , the big ticket romance that warner brothers ' unleashed upon the movie going public just in time for valentine 's day .
the story , what little of it that there is , involves boring chicago tribune reporter theresa osborne ( robin wright - penn ) dealing with her recent divorce and trying to raise her young son jason ( jesse james ) .
during a brief stay somewhere in new england she finds the titular message in a bottle while on a morning run by the ocean .
the letter , written to a mystery woman named catherine , instantly captivates her .
upon her return , theresa shares it with her best friend lina ( illeana douglas ) , her boss charlie ( robbie coltrane ) , and the entire city of chicago ( the newspaper publishes an article about it ) .
it turns out that the message was written by grieving widower garret blake ( kevin costner ) and so theresa travels to north carolina and tracks him down .
he turns out to have a colorful father ( paul newman ) but is otherwise perfectly dull and overly obsessed with sailing .
this is somehow attractive to theresa and the two begin their awkward courtship .
of course she does n't tell him that she found his letter , she wants to but the rules of this type of film require him to find out later ( preferably right after they first make love ) .
this way garret can get very angry and the relationship can be threatened .
the discovery of the message and garret 's discovery that theresa discovered the message are really the only two noteworthy events that happen during the nearly two and a quarter hour running time of this film .
there 's a truly lame subplot about garret 's relationship with his dead wife 's family ( he gets into a bar fight with her brother , played by john savage ) and then the necessary tear - jerking ending .
a fun way to pass the time is to take bets on exactly who will die , although it becomes pretty clear by the second reel .
the actual death sequence is one of the most ridiculously forced , and unintentionally humorous , sequences filmed since .
. .
well , since costner 's the postman ( 1997 ) .
message in a bottle is one slow moving film .
last year audiences were offered endurance tests such as the horse whisperer and meet joe black but both of those films resemble jerry bruckheimer productions next to this .
they also had redeeming qualities in the form of quality performances and some stand out technical work .
message in a bottle has a decent enough cast but they 're fighting the material all the way , and losing badly .
costner and , especially , wright - penn are both likable and attractive enough to cheer for but their characters are simply too boring .
they also fail to generate any kind of real romantic chemistry .
the supporting players are given very little to do .
the reliable douglas is particularly wasted .
old pro newman gives his all and occasionally threatens to kick some life into this dead horse of a film .
a confrontational scene he has with costner near the end is especially well played .
however , too frequently he just reminds us how unexciting our lead characters are .
the film is very polished on the technical side to be sure but it only works to undercut the story .
gabriel yared , who previously set the romantic moods of the english patient ( 1996 ) and city of angels ( 1998 ) with his scores , overdoes it a bit here .
caleb deschanel 's camera makes everything look a little too beautiful .
do the offices of the chicago tribune really need to look heavenly ?
the editing by steven weisberg is troubling not only considering all that could have been cut out but is also simply messy at times .
the real offender here is screenwriter
gerald di pego .
working from a best- selling novel by nicholas sparks ( which i have not read but have been told is on the same literary level as the bridges of madison county ) , di pego creates one of the most uninspired scripts of recent times .
its strict adherence to clich ?
s brings to mind such disasters as i still know what you did last summer ( 1998 ) .
there simply is n't an original scene in this film .
the dialogue is rarely better than laughable and this is only accentuated by the excessively long pauses every character takes while speaking .
this is director mandoki 's first film since when a man loves a woman ( 1994 ) , the solid meg ryan / andy garcia romance .
he 's simply going through the motions with this .
message in a bottle is easily the worst of the several romantic offerings available in theaters at the moment and vies with what dreams may come ( 1998 ) as one of the most misguided romances of the decade .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: phew , what a mess ! for his fifth collaboration with director
rich- ard donner ( lethal weapon i - iii , maverick )
, mel gibson plays a motormouth , maybe mentally ill new york city cabbie , jerry , whose wild conspiracy theories are all but ignored by alice ( julia roberts , acting all serious ) , the justice department employee that he has a crush on .
she not interested , but another person is : a cia psychiatrist ( patrick stewart ) who promptly kidnaps him .
is one of jerry 's conjectures correct ?
* is * the metal strip in the new $ 100 bill being used to track your movements ?
is oliver stone still alive , because he cut a deal with george bush to spread * dis * information ?
is this movie really about
* any * of the crazed cabbie 's theories ?
no , no ,
and no . as it turns out
, there 's some other nonsense going on here , involving and revolving around jerry 's background .
( hint : pay attention to an early scene where jerry blacks out and flashes back , in quick succession , to images of an interrogation room , hypodermic needles , and ms .
roberts herself . )
the * initial * premise is pretty good and is played , for a while , at a delightfully dizzying clip .
mel is wider - open that we 've ever seen him and , if his character 's relationship with roberts ' initially strains credibility , their combined star power is blissfully intoxicating .
( the highest wattage of the summer , perhaps ? )
even when the plot contrivances begin to intrude , the two remain a randy dandy screen pair .
there 's a great scene in jerry 's fortress , er , apartment , with alice trying to act casual as her hyperactive host tries to remember the combination to a locked coffee bean container .
( which he stores in another locked con- tainer , his fridge . )
other hilarious moments , of which there are many , include a trio of memorable convention - breakers , where alice ditches a tail , jerry cold - cocks someone , and , later , eludes a foot pursuit , each in a uproariously unexpected fashion .
( that 's donner 's own ladyhawke playing in the theater , btw . )
let 's see , other pleasures include .
. .
a brilliant title sequence , a jazzy score from carter burwell , and the worth - paying - to - see sight of roberts pumping lead into one bad guy and slamming another 's head into a wall .
oh , pretty woman !
getting to the latter , however , requires slogging through an increasingly overburdened and ultimately unappealing story .
the last hour of conspiracy theory devolves from tolerable to torturous to almost unwatchable .
more stuff happens of the stupid shit variety than is worth mentioning here , except , perhaps , for a late sequence that has alice locating jerry in an abandoned wing of a mental hospital by hearing his voice carrying through the air ducts .
and here i thought it was wabbit season .
good god , who rewrites these movies ? and
do they arrive in nondescript black vehicles ?

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: plot : something about a bunch of kids going into a haunted house and playing out parodies of other horror and non - horror movies .
oh yeah , there 's also something about a ghost possessing the mansion and shit , but trust me
, you wo n't care much about the " plot " in this film . . .
critique : parody movies either work
or they do n't and
this one just does n't work !
the laughs are n't as pronounced this time around , the energy level , the gags and all of the characters just seem to be going through the motions here .
it 's like they were all in a hurry to finish the film or something ( wink , wink ) .
and the scariest part of it all ?
check out the number of screenwriters it took to pen this puppy : seven !
i say again , it took seven people to write 82-minutes worth of fart jokes , half - assed stunts and spoofs of films other than horror .
now i 'm not exactly sure if each of the writers wrote their own parts separately or just tossed
" funny sketch " ideas out there while smoking the chronic themselves , but the end result is a film that basically plays out like an extended skit on " saturday night live " .
there are a couple of funny one - liners , but mostly just rehashed one - joke scenes , a lot of dead silence and lame gags .
add to that the very unoriginal title and movie poster
and you got ta start asking yourself if anybody was even trying here ( the film 's website is n't even up yet ! ! !
what the f
*
* * ? ! ? ) .
i do however have to give it up to james woods , the man who opens up this movie with the funniest parody of them all ( the exorcist take - off-- miss this
and you 've missed any reason to see the flick ) .
i especially liked his one - liner as he walked in to see the possessed woman 's head turning .
very funny !
unfortunately , the film plummets straight down after that , with dumb parodies of many teen flicks that have nothing to do with horror such as save the last dance and dude , where 's my car , and other action movies like charlie 's angels and mission impossible 2 .
now help me figure this one out , will you ?
is n't this supposed to be a parody film of horror movies ? ! ?
( or maybe that 's just the title of the film f - ing with my head ) .
well , i 'm sorry to have to say this but the only horror in this film is its lame - ass script
!
the wayans brothers should have known better than to look towards the weinstein brothers ( money ) instead of the zucker brothers ( comedy ) for this sequel .
unfortunately for us , all we 're left with here is a skeleton of a film which might 've been funny , had it been worked over a few more times , tightened up here and there , and been injected with more solid laughs .
but as things stand now , there is no doubt in my mind that the obvious greed to capitalize on the success of last year 's film has led everyone down this path , so screw them for not trying as hard ( critically speaking , of course ) .
you should all be ashamed of yourselves for not putting enough " real " effort into this chop - job and for not providing your fans with the ultimate of your talents .
pooh on you !
( that 's telling 'em , joblo !
sheesh )
btw , i 'm allotting one point alone to actress kathleen robertson , whose massive breasts and skanky g - string had me chompin ' at the bit .
you go , girl !
everyone else .
. .
stay !
where 's joblo coming from ? airplane ( 10/10 ) - airplane ii ( 10/10 ) - galaxy quest ( 8/10 ) - hannibal ( 7/10 ) - the haunting ( 3/10 ) - mafia ( 5/10 ) - naked gun ( 8/10 ) - scary movie ( 8/10 )
- top secret ( 9/10 )

SOLUTION:
N