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

Q: jacques tati 's 1953 classic " les
vacances
de m . hulot " ( also known as " mr .
hulot 's vacation , " in english ) ought to be the textbook on how to do non ?
dialogue comedy in film .
the characters hardly ever speak to each other directly , and the film operates on the paper ?
thin premise that monsieur hulot , played by tati himself , is awkward and clumsy and generally manages to annoy the other guests at the beach resort hotel where he is taking a week 's vacation .
yet the film had me beside myself laughing more consistently than any in recent memory .
part of the reason the film works so well is the clever setup for the various gags .
slapstick has often been regarded as an unsophisticated and even crude form of comedy , but i think part of the reason for this is that it often seems forced : you can only see movie characters start running after something and then crash face - first into a pole so many times before you start to wonder what all these poles are doing there in the first place or why these people do n't watch where they 're going .
in " les vacances de m . hulot , " the gags build upon each other and often start out relatively low - key .
in one sequence , for example , hulot is painting the side of his small row boat on the beach when , while his back is turned , the paint can gets caught up in the oncoming waves , washes away , then comes back up on the other side of the boat .
while crossing over to get the can , hulot steps in the boat and unknowingly cracks it .
when he actually takes the boat out into the water , it breaks in half , but the two halves flip up against each other , trapping him inside as the bystanders mistake it for a shark fin and panic on the beach ensues .
tati does n't waste a single opportunity for humor ;
scenes that might have yielded one joke in most comedies are good for at least four or five in this film .
it has been said that comedy relies on frustrating the audience 's expectations , and " les vacances de m . hulot " succeeds brilliantly in that area as well .
tati accomplishes this largely through a sort of deadpan understatement .
when hulot goes into a separate room during dinner and starts playing a record at defeaningly loud volume , no fights or shouting matches ensue ; instead , the waiter calmly walks in and shuts off the power in the room , disconnecting the record player and leaving a puzzled hulot sitting in the dark .
tati also uses running gags to this effect , allowing them to keep running far longer than most comedy directors would ; more often than not , we can see them coming and think , " oh , he 's not going to do that again , " but , lo and behold , he does .
for example , there is a recurring joke in which hulot 's noisy , sputtering car engine wakes everyone in the middle of the night as an exterior shot reveals the hotel 's lights coming on one by one .
then this image turns up again in the finale , which i will not give away other than to say that involves a lot more noise in the middle of the night than a car engine could ever produce .
the ending is one of two elements that really make this a four - star film as opposed to merely an above - average , clever comedy . as much as i was laughing during this film , i was thinking to myself occasionally that tati had to top himself at the end to really make this work as a complete viewing experience ; suffice it to say that he did .
the other important aspect is that the film never seems disdainful of its characters .
it easily could have turned the tables on hulot and had the other guests exact some kind of revenge on him ; alternatively , it could have portrayed the others as humorless curmudgeons .
instead , tati seems to regard his characters with cheerful amusement more than anything else and invites the audience to like them , however strange or irritating they might seem .
" les vacances de m .
hulot " is not subtitled , but the dialogue is sparse and for the most part not terribly essential to the flow of events .
anyone with a taste for this kind of absurd humor ought to make this film their next rental from the video store .
note : " les vacances
de m . hulot " was not rated by the mpaa .
it would at most receive a pg rating .

A: P
****
Q: capsule : not as bad a sequel as crow 2 or batman & robin , but still horribly putrid , cheesy and ill - conceived .
this one belongs in saturday morning cartoons . . .
extended review : you know , about halfway through this movie , i realized that if you hacked out everything except the fight scenes , you 'd have a damn fine 35 minutes or so of flashy , hong kong style martial arts .
beautifully choreographed by robin shou , who also plays liu kang , the fight scenes are both mind - blowing and graceful , acrobatic enough to make olympic gymnasts weep .
this is what made the original so fun , but
unfortunately for the sequel , we are without the frenetic directorial style of paul anderson .
instead , they got john r .
leonetti , the cinematographer for the original mortal kombat . not a good choice .
while the fight scenes are brutal and eye - popping , the rest of the movie looks like standard made for tv fare .
the acting is sub - par , which i could endure if it were not for a . )
the director 's style , b . )
the special effects , & c . )
the treatment of the story and characters .
a . )
mr .
leonetti should go back to lighting , in my opinion .
i could say dozens of bad things about him :
he way overuses slow - motion
, he has no eye for action , he ca n't get even mediocre performances out of actors , and so on .
but by far his worst move was the way he treated jumping .
apparantly , everybody can now fly .
hell , i 'm all for the occaisional gravity defying flip kick and whatnot , but not when it happens every few minutes , and is done so poorly .
better jumping and acrobatics has been seen in xena : warrior princess .
in short , they should have gotten paul anderson back .
or at least let robin shou direct . . .
b . )
unlike the first one , whose sfx were vibrant and somewhat realistic , mk : a 's special effects are bland , fake looking , and overall just plain bad
.
i counted at least half a dozen times that blue - screening was painfully obvious .
had this movie been made in the 80 's , it would have been ground - breaking .
but in today 's industry , it does n't even look finished .
c . )
now for
the _ really _ bad parts .
i admit , i 'm an avid fan of the mortal kombat series .
the games are amusing diversions , an easy way to work off stress and anger .
the first movie was a mindlessly fun thrillride .
this could have been a really cool movie .
it is n't .
the writers apparantly deemed it necessary to lower the target audience from teens to preschoolers .
some of the plot elements are just plain stupid .
how stupid ?
take , for instance , how our heroes move around .
they use giants spheres the roll around underground , supposedly at thousands of miles per hour . . .
oh boy . . .
even worse is the treatment of secondary characters .
blink and you 'll miss 'em .
most characters had more depth in the video games .
if you thought batman & robin was bad about this , you ai n't seen nothin' yet .
a good 75 % of the characters are introduced , kick somebody around a bit , then either die or are forgotten about .
there 's no explanation at all for this .
and for the final blasphemy , the fight that all the fans were waiting rabidly for , the fight hyped to be the most intricate of the movie , lasted about 3 minutes and then just sort of . . . ended .
it almost made me weep . to sum it all up , rent it on video , and fast - forward through everything except the fight scenes .

A: N
****
Q: it 's been a long time since walt disney has delivered us a classic along the lines of the little mermaid or beauty and the beast .
sure , there have been delightful outings like last years hercules .
but nothing entirely groundbreaking .
with the release of the studio 's newest feature length film , a remake of edgar rice burrough 's creation tarzan , disney has plunged into new waters with both maturity and animation techniques .
it 's no classic , but this new tarzan represents exactly what a family film should be
.
the plot is loyal to the original storyline , as tarzan 's parents are forced to abandon their ship which has caught fire , and find shelter in the jungles of africa .
but , they are killed ( offscreen ) by the snarling cheetah sabor , leaving baby tarzan alone and unharmed in his crib .
found by kala ( voiced with effective gentleness by glenn close ) , a kindhearted mother and member of a gorilla pack , tarzan is taken into the primate group and raised as one of their own .
we follow the young boy through the years , as he partakes in various adventures with his loud mouth gorilla friend terk ( a very brash but funny rosie o'donnell ) and clumsy elephant tantor ( wayne knight ) .
of course , in any disney film we are given some kind of goofy sidekick or humorous chum for the hero . in tarzan , these characters fill that space rather inconspicuously .
gags that were magnified in other family films are kept quite minor here .
most of the characters are amusing without being forced .
as tarzan grows to manhood , the suspected antagonist stumbles into the picture .
here , the notorious bad guy is the big game hunter clayton ( brian blessed ) , who 's accompanying a hapless professor ( nigel hawthorne ) on an expedition through the jungle .
of course , there 's the professor 's daughter , jane ( nicely vocalized by a cheerful minnie driver ) who will help supply the romantic quotient of the movie .
the thing that blew my socks off about this version of tarzan is the stunning animation .
directors chris buck and kevin lima have applied a breathtaking 3-d element to the movement of the athletic title character , and the fast - paced editing is absolutely a marvel . as tarzan carries jane through the treetops , narrowly escaping a pack of nasty baboons , he slips and slides like a daredevil snow boarder or star surfer riding the big wave .
your eyes can barely keep up ; it 's a fantastic accomplishment .
the subject matter here is also a notch or two above animation average .
there are important questions raised about tarzan 's place in the world , and all are handled exceptionally well by the screenwriters .
there is no shred of doubt left to ponder afterward , which is a surprising plus that i was n't expecting to find here .
suffice to say , this film will have both adults and children thoroughly entertained .
the grown - up tarzan is voiced by tony goldwyn , who made a name for himself as the ` big mean jerk ' from ghost .
goldwyn is effective playing someone who 's not aware of his world 's dangers .
glenn close is also memorable
as his gorilla mother , and lance henriksen ( from tv 's millennium ) is terrific
as the silverback father unsure of how to accept the presence of a human child .
as the movie 's villain , there is nothing particularly special or catching about the character of clayton .
it helps that brian blessed supplies his voice with game enthusiasm , but he is nothing compared to james woods ' hilarious hades from hercules .
a burley guy with a big gun who just wants to capture the gorillas does not quite constitute for an all - together noticeable screen presence .
still , this is one great thrill - ride that disney has constructed .
i never expected rice burrough 's work to be transformed so successfully from live action to animation , nor with so much emotional depth .
parents , along with all the kiddies , are going to find much to like in tarzan .

A:
P
****