instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
by the time dennis quaid , the ostensible star of switchback , makes his first appearance at about the 22-minute mark , you may find yourself wondering why he bothered .
after all , writer / director jeb stuart has already set up a fairly promising pair of parallel story lines .
the first finds amarillo , texas sheriff buck olmstead ( r . lee ermey ) facing a hotly - contested election battle just as a brutal double homicide is discovered at a motel in his jurisdiction .
as olmstead begins his investigation , we also meet the two men who come to be our prime suspects .
lane dixon ( jared leto ) is an enigmatic young hitchhiker ; bob goodall ( danny glover ) is the jovial motorist who offers lane a ride from texas to his utah destination .
all the necessary conflicts seem to be in place -- the internal struggle of olmstead over the clash between good politics and good police work , and the external struggle as one of the two travelers eventually becomes villain to the other 's protagonist .
but then quaid shows up as grimly determined fbi agent frank lacrosse .
lacrosse is certain that the amarillo murders are the work of a serial killer he has been tracking for nearly two years .
he 's not supposed to be tracking him any more -- according to the bureau , they 've got their man -- but lacrosse has a very important reason for believing otherwise .
two months earlier , lacrosse 's own son was kidnapped by the killer , and the boy has yet to turn up anywhere .
lacrosse knows his killer 's work , and he knows that the man is still out there somewhere trying to continue their game .
it would n't be fair to reduce everything that 's wrong with switchback to quaid 's presence , but it 's a pretty good place to start .
there 's a reason lacrosse feels like an intruder in the narrative instead of its vital center :
as a dramatic actor , dennis quaid possesses exactly one facial expression and one vocal intonation .
we can tell lacrosse is determined because his face is a perpetual tight - jawed , sourpuss pucker ; we can tell he 's grim because every word comes out in an eastwood - esque rasp .
a more flexible performer might have given weight to the character , pulling the audience into his haunted intensity , making switchback _ his _ film .
quaid
merely looks annoyed and slightly constipated .
it 's tough to become emotionally invested in a character 's turmoil when it looks like all he really needs is a big bowl of bran flakes .
even without quaid , it does n't appear that switchback would have stayed on course .
the early scenes between leto and glover have a lively energy , building our curiosity over which man -- the taciturn kid or his gregarious benefactor -- is the real threat .
unfortunately , stuart tips his hand far too early in the game , both through the pitch of the individual performances and the facts he chooses to reveal .
once the mystery of the killer 's identity is dispatched , the interaction between leto and glover becomes stale and predictable
.
in fact , " stale and predictable " describes the direction that switchback takes in general , falling back on far - too - common hollywood devices like cats jumping out of nowhere , a climactic fistfight on board a freight train , and edgy law enforcement agents .
it 's too bad stuart was n't willing to spend more time with sheriff olmstead , far and away the most interesting and appealing character in the film .
played with atypical restraint by r .
lee ermey
, he 's a wonderful , unconventional hero who seems genuinely comfortable accepting the consequences of acting on his convictions .
a film focusing on the olmstead would have signaled a film - maker willing to take a few risks with his casting and story - telling .
instead , stuart places his trust in a " name " star who ca n't carry the material .
maybe next time he 'll throw away that one crucial page in the script , the one where the grimly determined fbi agent wanders onto the scene to muck up a perfectly good story .
answer:
N


question:
synopsis : easily - angered , chainsmoking architect david encounters his homicidal first wife diedre five years after their divorce .
diedre easily cons david 's not - so - bright new wife molly into believing she 's a child psychologist so that she can influence molly and
david 's quick - tempered son , michael .
diedre , at the same time , murders a bunch of people .
comments : the ex is a very bad movie .
i have n't seen a turkey of this magnitude in quite a while .
i kept vacillating , however , between giving the ex one star for its sheer awfulness and three stars for its campy humor ( ultimately , i decided to split the difference and give it two stars ) .
as summarized briefly in the synopsis , this is yet another spurned - psycho - lover - gets - her - revenge type movie .
i 'm not sure how many films have been produced since fatal attraction which use this tired storyline , but it seems like 10 , 000 , 000 , 000 .
the ex , however , though following many of the standard cliches of this thriller subgenre , differs slightly from the norm in that , at least , it does n't take itself too seriously like so many other duds do ( malicious and stalked are two examples which come to mind ) .
those involved in the movie realize they 're in a turkey , apparently , and turn in hammy performances which compliment the ludicrous dialogue contained within the script .
the ex 's storyline , as i said , incorporates many cliches predominant in films of its nature ; however ,
the plot is so overwrought and unbelievable
that , after a while , the viewer must accept that logic does not operate in the realm of the movie .
diedre , david 's first wife , kills and kills and kills , for example , without ever having to worry about police investigations and the like ( it 's not as though she 's bright enough not to leave fingerprints at the scene of the crime ) .
david and his new wife molly have an incredibly difficult time understanding why michael , their son , has emotional problems , specifically his inability to control his anger .
though david smokes like tomorrow will never come and blows up at people every other minute in the movie , the connection between him and his son is not made .
molly is easily swayed by diedre into believing she 's a child psychologist and allows the demented woman to spend time with her son . time and time again , things do not add up in this movie .
if a viewer ca n't accept this fact , then he will definately not like the ex .
if , on the other hand , he can appreciate the movie for its campiness , then he 'll probably like it much better .
i do n't mean to necessarily suggest , however , that the ex is a memorable exercise in camp .
even when viewed from an it's - so - bad - it's - good angle , this movie is n't all that successful .
the ex does have its moments , though , almost all of which involve yancy butler ( the psychotic diedre ) and nick mancuso ( david ) .
these two actors turn in decidedly hammy performances which , oftentimes , elicit chuckles from the audience .
the truly awful lines written for them help this humor along .
butler gets the larger portion of bad dialogue ; every time her character kills someone , she has a punchline that 's unbelievably inane .
when she murders a tenant of an apartment she wishes to use to spy on david , for example , diedre whacks the elderly lady with a crowbar and states
" i 'm so sorry , your lease is terminated .
"
or how about when diedre takes out her therapist in another ridiculous scene ?
( diedre 's therapist wishes to have her recommitted ,
so she decides to visit diedre , alone , in her new apartment -- never realizing , of course , that it 's not her 's .
therapists typically are catatonically brain - dead in these movies ) .
having successfully snuffed the woman out , diedre looks at the body and says : " what was it that you always said to me at the end of each session , dr .
jones ?
oh , that 's right . '
i 'm sorry , but your time is up ! '
"
this is what passes for humor in the film .
the audience does n't necessarily laugh but groan ( the type of groan that suggests the audience ca n't believe they 're watching this crap -- although watching it they are ) .
nick mancuso 's chainsmoking , nervous - wreck character does not have the cheesy lines that butler 's character delivers , but his ridiculously overdone performance provides for some better comic relief .
in between drags off his cigarette , for instance , in one of the movie 's best scenes , david tries to explain to his lawyer what a creep his ex - wife is .
in exaggerated exasperation , he nearly shouts " the woman is a cuckoo - bird ! "
( trust me , it is funny in context . )
and so , the movie continues until its painfully obvious conclusion .
i wo n't reveal the ending specifically ( though anyone remotely familiar with thrillers of this type could probably guess the ending just from this film review ) , but i will say that the ex has one of the biggest fire hazards appearing recently in film .
molly and david own a cabin that becomes engulfed by flames in approximately three seconds !
molly , at one point in the film , not - so - brilliantly observes , after discovering diedre has moved into an apartment across from her family 's to spy upon them , that " she 's crazy .
" you 'd be pretty crazy too if you 'd rented this turkey
.
i 'd avoid it unless it 's on tv
and you come across it .
if you do , you may want to watch it , groan at the bad punchlines and stupid plot , and feel good that you did n't spend money renting it .
answer:
N


question:
based on the boris karloff 's classic by the same name , the mummy starts off with the high - priest of osiris , imhotep , who murders the pharoah for his mistress and is punished by being mummified in the most horrifying way possible -- bandaged up , having his tongue removed , and being covered in flesh - eating scarab beetles , then entombed . . .
all while still alive .
recap a few thousand years later , where a soldier named rick ( played by brandan fraser ) aids a young historian named evelyn ( played by rachel wiesz ) and her brother , jonathan ( played by john hannah ) in finding the book of amon ra , in the process inadvertently freeing the mummy .
problem is that the mummy wants to revive his mistress , using evelyn as a sacrifice . . . walking in with relatively low expectations , i thought this movie was actually pretty good .
the visuals and cgi are astounding , and obviously not cheaply done at all .
they pack a ton of detail into the images , especially during scenes involving mummies rendered completely by cgi .
the computer special effects makes for some brilliant scenes , such as unnerving moments involving flesh - eating scarab beetles and moments where the mummy goes after the people who freed him ( after all , those who took his artifacts are cursed ) .
unfortunately , the film attempts to be way too much in such a short span of time , becoming a tug of war for control between genres .
on one hand , it is a fast paced action film .
on the other , it 's a frightening horror film .
and on the side , it 's a hilarious comedy .
ideally , for it to be successful , the film would have to focus on one the more action oriented aspect , with one character serving as the comic relief ( that would be johnson ) .
the problem with this film is that it has at least three characters serving as comic relief , with rick occasionally delivering his witty one - liner . if they were trying to make a horror - action - comedy , it would have helped if it were established early on in the film , but unfortunately , with the backstory of imhotep 's entombment , that would be impossible .
and then there 's the slapstick fight scene between a sword - wielding rick and an army of mummies .
while really well done , it had the feel of slapstick comedy .
replace the sword with a chainsaw and you 'd effectively have ash fighting zombies in army of darkness .
while entertaining and funny , it feels really out of place .
but at least it 's a break from the naive heroes
that brendan fraser has been playing a lot of .
on the whole , the movie is pure popcorn fare from beginning to end , entertaining the audience .
but i must end my review with a plea to movie theatre owners . . .
turn the sound down !
while a lot of theatres have good sound systems , my ears were almost ringing as i walked out of the theatre ( the sound is particularly irritating and will make you crap your pants if you 're not careful ) .
when they were showing the trailer for the upcoming schwarzenegger film , " end of days " , it was so loud
i could n't make anything out .
answer:

P