instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
for about twenty minutes into mission impossible 2 director john woo ( the killer , hard boiled , face off ) appears to have made an exciting , elegant , charming spy thriller , kind of a post millennium james bond adventure with a strapping american ( read : unsophisticated ) hero more willing to drop kick villains than out fox them .
sadly , as the picture progresses , the final product begins to bear a closer resemblance to a souped up , two - hour long episode of magyuver .
and not a particularly good one at that .
what went wrong ?
mi2 begins flashily enough , that initial flash leading us to believe that it 'll soon give way to something of a plot , but it only gives way to more flash , then digresses further into a presumably unintentional parody of itself with much slo mo posturing and countless action set pieces wherein bad guys seem to deliberately leap into the way of tom cruise 's firing gun just so they can die really cool .
early on , during a car chase between soon to be lovers ethan hunt ( tom cruise ) and nyah nordoff - hall ( thandie newton ) , woo works some of his trademark magic .
in one hypnotic , though completely inexplicable sequence , the director slows the action down to a languid semi - stall as cruise and his stunning opponent stare into one and other 's eyes with come hither sexuality ? ? ?
just as their respective cars smash and spin in accordance , coming ever so close to toppling over a neighboring cliff .
prior to this we see the famed trailer opener of cruise climbing a steep mountain , sans scaffolding , then leaping from one jagged rock formation to another .
why ?
i have n't the foggiest .
i doubt even john woo could provide you with a logical reply .
with mi2 woo has become a slave to the summer movie machine , the one that jettisons logic for gravity defying effects and story for more gravity defying effects .
it 's possible that these " spies " could be adrenaline junkies climbing mountains and crashing into each other as means to get off , though of course this is never explored .
the scenes i 've described are really only included to titillate , not to give any insight into character .
god forbid .
woo certainly knows how to make each set piece energetic , but they remain individual set pieces never connecting to form anything more than splices of beer commercial - like visuals .
still in terms of crackerjack eye candy , the opening has much to cherish .
cruise and newton first meet during a vigorous flamenco dance featuring several welcome woo devices ( the graceful slow mo artistry of synchronized movement juxtaposed against the stage 1 romance of two attractive individuals discovering how attractive the other is ) .
between the frantic dancing , woo trains his camera on cruise and newton as they make with some sensuous eye contact .
the scene is a little over the top in a bon jovi music video circa 1988 kind of way , yet it has style and something of soul , and woo casts a bit of a spell on us .
sure it 's all smoke and mirrors , but we can see that there happens to be a talented maestro behind this particular product .
thandie and cruise later meet in a bathtub in a scene that 's about half as playfully charming as the jennifer lopez \ george cloony trunk meeting in out of sight .
they flirt and exchange obvious double entendres .
newton bats her eyes flirtatiously .
cruise grins a little too slyly .
the cruise character , ethan hunt , has been drastically altered since the first film .
here cruise plays him more as a hip , sexual dynamo than the square jawed robot he impersonated in part 1 .
he 's cool and dashing , which is precisely the kind of role we want to see cruise in after watching him sleep walk through eyes wide shut ( which might just be the longest episode of red show diaries ever committed to film ) , and blustered his way through magnolia ( quite possibly the most overrated performance of the 90 's ) .
sadly as the film progresses we see less of cruise 's initial " i 'm the man !
" charm and more slo - mo close - ups of his preening mug .
mi2 falls apart on nearly every level during its repetitious third act , which is essentially one hour long action sequence that just wo n't stop .
the whole thing commences with an utterly generic gun battle ( the first gun fight in the film ) , which really should be unheard of in a john woo film , but alas this particular battle could 've been staged by anyone from renny harlin to joseph merhi ( of course excepting the " symbolic " pigeons who seem to find their way into every john woo picture ) .
we 've all seen guys slide across the floor in slo mo while firing a gun in each hand .
it is n't done any differently here .
the action is pure hard target \ broken arrow theatrics with nothing to propel it but the apparent need to see tom cruise drop kick face less villains while his hair whips stylishly in the wind .
he 's cool for sure but
he 's made to be as empty as the movie .
the actor is n't used so much for his boyish appeal as for his chiseled looks ; he smiles narcissistically into the camera at literally any moment , be it during a gunfight , before one or after one .
when he 's not beaming away , he 's staring into the lens with cold eyes trying to look mad as hell , but woo 's editing seriously undermines the effort .
he fetishizes cruise 's angular face with such glee that it turns into a naked gun style spoof .
i half expected cruise to peel off his facemask and reveal that he 's really austin powers .
in a classic woo action moment , ethan hunt struts past a fiery doorway glaring at the baddies within its frame like a pin - up boy angel of death .
the gunfight turns into a daring escape which turns into a reckless mission which turns into a motorcycle attack in which bad guys seem to angle directly for cruise to kill them like some kind of mass suicide ritual ( one dumb bastard even jumps his bike over the gun toting cruise , basically inviting our handsome hero to shoot him in mid air which he does ) .
the lead bad guy ( played by the appropriately british dougray scott ) and cruise face off in a mentally deficient game of chicken ? ? ? on motorcycles .
though instead of jumping off to the side at the last moment , the two grown men leap directly into the other giving each other a mid air bear hug , only to fly about a hundred feet ( still in bear hug position ) , land on a beach below and begin a mano - e - mano fist fight that ends with the bad guy pulling a " so you thought i was dead . . .
"
.
not to worry , cruise takes care of the problem without even breaking a sweat .
what a hero !
you may have noticed that i opted not to describe an iota of mi2 's plot .
my reasoning is simple : i 'm not sure of any good it would do .
the film itself has absolutely no concern with story , only with hurtling forth to the next " special " effect .
i was n't kidding when i told a friend of mine that mi2 has less plot than the average aerosmith video .
nobody will go to this for the plot , and if they do they 'll surely regret it .
as summer movies evolve ( or devolve ) character and plot have become increasingly whittled down to nearly nothing .
in mi , the plot seemed to be built around brian de palma 's ( that film 's director ) stylistic flourishes , while in mi2 the plot only serves to give us an intermittent breather from woo 's non - stop masturbatory pandemonium .
it 's irrelevant in every sense , as is character .
all that ultimately matters are those pesky smoke and mirrors .
answer:
N


question:
i rented " brokedown palace " last night blind , having heard nothing about it beforehand , and i enjoyed it immensely despite some flaws .
for anyone wishing to have the same experience i would suggest reserving judgement of the movie until viewing it in its entirety .
that is no easy task .
superficially , it bears an unfortunate ( and not necessarily unintended ) resemblance to several other movies , notably " return to paradise " and " midnight express .
" as a result nearly every review of " brokedown palace " i subsequently read became hopelessly entangled in making the obvious comparisons .
the consequence was nearly universal condemnation , which is a shame as
this is a fine film .
for those who have yet to view the movie , let me say that it is not an attempt to portray the nightmarish reality of the third world criminal justice system ( as was " midnight express " ) nor completely the moral dilemma and examination of the meaning of friendship and humanity that was the heart of " return to paradise .
" in my view , if this film is to be compared to any other source it would have to be joseph conrad 's acclaimed novel , " lord jim .
"
problematically , the basic storyline seems more than familiar : two american teenage girls on vacation are sentenced to spend most of their lives in a thai prison for drug smuggling in an obvious set - up involving a suave con - man , a shadowy criminal conspiracy and a corrupt third world " justice " system .
the girls are alice ( claire danes ) and darlene ( kate beckinsale ) .
they 're life - long buddies who planned a high - school graduation trip to hawaii , and then secretly changed their destination to the more exotic thailand without telling their parents .
once there , they find a $ 6 hotel and go sight - seeing , which includes sneaking into a luxury hotel to sip expensive drinks poolside .
they get caught trying to charge the bill to the wrong room , a minor transgression which will later come back to haunt them , but they are saved from hotel security by a charming , friendly australian , nick ( daniel lapaine ) , who takes care of the bill with a more polished execution of the girl 's scam .
he then proceeds to separate the girls and make smooth moves , first toward alice , then toward darlene .
by now alarm bells are going off among viewers .
the ever - present nick is too slick and his stories do n't add up ( to us ) --the girls , of course , are too naive to notice .
long before it happens , we 're anticipating the inevitable disappearance of the fast - talking smuggler and the arrest of our teenaged sitting - ducks at the airport en route to hong kong caught holding the bag ( literally ) containing heroin .
just as predictably , the thai police and courts do their part in meting out injustice and our trusting tourists are prison - bound for a long stretch .
left unanswered is the red herring issue of whether one or the other of the girls was a willing accomplice .
for those in need of a ready answer , might i suggest closer scrutiny of the bell hop at the girl 's fleabag hotel .
as one door after another to their comfortable former life is closed , the girls and their families turn in desperation to the noiresque expatriate lawyer / fixer " yankee hank " ( bill pullam ) and his thai - born partner - wife .
a recurring element of the movie is the tension between appearance and reality as expressed in one of the film 's tag lines , " who do you trust ? , " and hank is no exception although seasoned movie- goers and those familiar with pullman 's oeuvre will find few surprises .
much of the remainder of the movie is a smorgasbord of intriguing themes incompletely explored in short - hand fashion .
lou diamond phillips , for instance , plays a delightfully sinister and callous dea agent who , while appearing to be casually accommodating to hank , withholds vital information at crucial moments .
is he part of a wider conspiracy ? with an inherently powerful , if somewhat tired premise , the film offers by parts a riveting courtroom drama , a prison story , and a potential character study of american teens , their relationship , and what constitutes friendship between them .
the result is reasonably engaging and suspenseful , with the girls ' interaction , hank 's investigation , and the various trials and hearings , offering hope for their release , delivering tension -- as does the foredoomed possibility of their escape .
if " brokedown palace " has a major flaw , it is its creators ' tendency , like time - constrained tourists , to take frequent side trips down fascinating alleys only to reverse direction half - way down and return to the story 's main avenue .
and , if that were all there was to " brokedown palace , " it would n't be a very good movie .
but i believe the writers and director were after bigger game and , in this , they succeeded .
for the main theme of the movie , like the proffered name of its location , is freedom -- in all its permutations .
ultimately , the other sub - themes may be considered window dressing .
young and pretty , alice ( danes ) is an old soul ; a wild , streetwise teenager with a thirst for freedom and adventure .
presented as a perfect blend of yin and yang , dark and light , is her cautious best friend , darlene ( beckinsale ) .
clear - eyed and straightforward , alice is more complex than her friend .
she comes from a poorer background , has a reputation for getting into trouble and has lost the trust of everyone ( including her own father ) .
whereas darlene 's life is " on - track , " aimed at college , marriage , kids , a career , a suburban home , middle age and " fulfillment , " alice 's is uncertain , unfocused , and yearning .
one poignant scene in the film shows darlene shouting across an open moat to visitors -- friends and relatives from home , whose lives continue while hers is in limbo .
tellingly , alice is present but not included .
just as revealing of their different personalities , when alice and dar first come to thailand , the openness and delight on alice 's face does n't read as simple naivet ?
; the way she stands up and stretches as she and her friend ride along in a small boat , reaching toward the sun , she really is drinking in what she believes to be freedom , while " dar " remains seated in the shade .
"
brokedown palace " begins with an admission by alice of her guilt in a tape recording sent to hank .
however unintentional , it 's all alice 's fault .
she 's responsible for persuading her friend to lie to her parents , to sneak away from the safety of hawaii to the perils of thailand , to try the petty scam which places them in the clutches of the evil nick .
( in case one misses this point in the inevitable confusion of a film 's beginning , darlene obligingly reminds alice of her culpability in prison . )
dar , of course , is the willing dupe which , in her view , confers innocence .
never mind that it was her coercion of a reluctant alice to accompany her to hong kong which placed them in police custody in the first place or that her naive confession sealed their fate .
dar is innocent .
it does n't matter .
alice is the subject of this movie .
she and her journey toward personal freedom .
along the way we are treated to an unsympathetic portrait of the shallow american culture which created these girls with their half - baked sensibilities and materialistic goals .
in the end , that culture , like its representatives , " yankee " hank and dar 's father ( a " man who knows how to grease the wheels " ) , proves as impotent as its government in the face of the girl 's tragedy .
thailand 's culture , contrary to most opinion , comes off much better by comparison .
it amazes me that reviewers argued this point at both extremes .
i believe the filmmaker 's view was that thai culture is vastly different from the american but not necessarily inferior .
the thai ( with the sole exceptions of a corrupt official and a spiteful prison spy ) were uniformly consistent in their behavior and true to their principles .
the girls were shown to be treated no better but certainly no worse than the native - born .
their prison ( in stark contrast to the probable reality ) was no hellhole , being relatively clean and sunlit .
the prison authorities demanded good hygiene , provided medical care when needed , and " hard manual labor " consisted of picking grass !
the thai guards were authoritarian ( what else ? )
but certainly not routinely sadistic .
as for the thai justice system , the reasoning of the thai judges , during both an appeal hearing and in the film 's penultimate scene was devastating in its logic and morality .
' freedom ' has many faces and " brokedown palace " explores many of them .
in the extreme , we have freedom of the body and freedom of the spirit .
some settle for the former alone while others remain imprisoned with an entire nation to roam without the latter .
but freedom seldom comes without a price .
which is why the movie 's other tag lines are : " what is your dream ?
" and " how far would you go ?
"
i believe i could make a good case for the interpretation that the person who attains freedom , incarcerated or not , by film 's end is alice .
she finds redemption and salvation through the acceptance of personal responsibility .
i think the light bathing only her figure among the assembled prisoners in the final scene visually signals that fact .
kate beckinsale 's character might more properly be likened to the " released " temple bird referred to twice during the film , " trained to fly back to its cage .
" as the thai magistrate observed in the film 's climactic scene , the issue was always one of " character ; " and the jamaican prisoner made it clear that " freedom " is achieved within oneself . if one thinks back over the movie , which character was transformed by their experiences ?
increasingly , the cinema landscape seems to have become littered with endless permutations of ' kung fu woman'--female characters virtually indistinguishable from male action figures .
here , at last , is the story of a modern heroine .
in reading the many user 's comments , i was struck by what seems an unusual phenomenon : whether or not a person liked the movie ,
almost everyone praised the actors .
think about that .
when was the last time you came away from a motion picture possibly hating it , but raving about all the performances in it ?
do yourself a favor : rent " brokedown palace " and watch it with a open mind .
there 's more there than meets the eye .
answer:
P


question:
a movie like mortal kombat : annihilation works ( and must be reviewed on ) multiple levels .
first , there 's the rampant usage of randian subtext that pervades the entire movie .
but occasionaly , almost as if making an ironic , self - depreciating remark , the movie tosses in clearly marxist imagery .
no no . . .
just kidding .
had you going there for a moment , did n't i ?
in all seriousness however , and to be fair to the movie , it * is * necessary to provide two viewpoints : that of a movie watcher unfamiliar ( or only marginally familiar ) with the whole mortal kombat phenomenon , and that of a fan of the first movie and/or a fan of the games .
the first movie ( mortal kombat ( 1995 ) ) concerned itself with a martial arts tournament that would decide the fate of earth ( and it 's 5 billion inhabitants ) .
the mortals won , and in theory this should have prevented the emperor shao khan from taking over the earth .
unfortunately , shao khan was a poor loser , and the very final scene in mortal kombat showed him arriving anyway , ready to take over the planet , as our heroes assumed a fighting stance .
the first movie was extraordinarily entertaining for those ( like myself ) who are fans of the game .
i 'd even go so far as to say that many folks who did n't know about the game probably enjoyed the movie .
the writers and directors knew the limitations of both their cast and of the basic story itself , and they did n't try to overachieve .
there were a lot of really cool fight scenes ( with really cool accompanying music ) , intersperesed with some distracting ( but ultimately non - intrusive ) bits of fluff passing itself off as a plot .
and , as we know , the movie was a smashing success at the box office .
mortal kombat :
annihilation picks up precisely where that movie left off , with some introductory exposition to clue in those who may not have seen the first movie .
shao khan has decided that he 's going to take over the earth
* anyways * , and to hell with some silly rule about mortals winning the tournament .
thereafter follows approximately 85 minutes of film that alternates between being confused , being trite , being silly , and being just plain stupid .
one gets the general impression that the producers of the movie thought " hey , that last movie was such a success that we can get more money and make a * real * movie now . " too bad they did n't simply stick with the formula from the first movie .
i could write volumes about the things that are wrong with this picture , but here are the high points :
* the acting is truly bad .
sandra hess ( playing the sonya blade character ) is particularly execrable , especially in scenes where she tries to convince us that she loved johnny cage ( a character from the first movie who gets greased at the beginning of this movie ) .
* in one of the worst pieces of mis - casting
i think i 've * ever * seen , james remar plays raiden , the god of thunder .
in the first movie , christopher lambert played raiden and played his character as though he was in on the joke :
a french actor playing a japanese thunder god being revered by chinese mystics .
i generally like it when actors are cast against type ( tim " tiny " lister , jr . being cast as the president of the u . s .
in the fifth element , for example ) , and remar has always been one of my favorite " utility " actors but he 's so totally wrong for this part that he does n't even have the luxury of amused self - awareness .
*
there are too many characters that are introduced as being potentially important , but then never seen again .
* there are a number of completely meaningless story sidetracks , including a muddled scene where liu kang ( robin shou ) seeks out nightwolf ( litefoot ) , has a mystical hallucination , and then wanders off with jade ( irina pantaeva ) .
for these reasons ( and many others ) , i can only give the movie a 2 . . . . . . unless you 're a huge fan of the games and/or the first movie .
in that case , the following critiques also apply : * sandra hess , while being an even worse actress than bridgette wilson ( who played sonya blade in the first movie ) , is much more convincing as a fighter .
wilson looked like she was simply mimicing some movements taught to her by the fight choreographer .
hess looks like she actually knows some martial arts , and puts together a much more believable fight scene .
* in the fights , each of the characters does at least * one * thing they do in the game ( and often more ) .
sonya does her " kiss of death , " jax does his " earthquake , " liu kang does his " animality , " and so on .
a big bonus for those of us who were looking for similar moves in the first movie and found them only rarely .
*
there are n't as many fight scenes in this movie as there were in the first , because the folks making the movie mistakenly try to hang a more robust plot in between .
silly , silly folks .
and the lamest fight involved two of the women in what turns into a mud - wrestling match .
lame and so obviously sexist
even i ( politically incorrect , for the most part ) noticed and remarked upon it .
* the special effects are generally better , except for the final fight scene between the emporer and liu kang in which both perform their " animalities .
" motaro and sheeva are both more convincing and lifelike than goro was in the first movie .
for folks like myself who loved the first movie and enjoy the games , i give this a 5 .
you 'll probably like it , but not nearly as much as you liked the first one .
answer:

N