Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: John Boorman's 1998 The General was hailed as a major comeback, though it's hard to see why on the evidence of the film itself. One of three films made that year about famed Northern Irish criminal Martin Cahill (alongside Ordinary Decent Criminal and Vicious Circles), it has an abundance of incident and style (the film was shot in colour but released in b&w Scope in some territories) but makes absolutely no impact and just goes on forever. With a main character who threatens witnesses, car bombs doctors, causes a hundred people to lose their jobs, tries to buy off the sexually abused daughter of one of his gang to keep out of jail and nails one of his own to a snooker table yet still remains a popular local legend an attractive enough personality for his wife to not only approve but actually suggest a menage a trios with her sister, it needs a charismatic central performance to sell the character and the film. It doesn't get it. Instead, it's lumbered with what may well be Brendan Gleeson's worst and most disinterested performance: he delivers his lines and stands in the right place but there's nothing to suggest either a local hero or the inner workings of a complex character. On the plus side, this helps not to overglamorize a character who is nothing more than an egotistical thug, but it's at odds with a script that seems to be expecting us to love him and his antics.

There's a minor section that picks up interest when the IRA whips up a local hate campaign against the 'General' and his men, painting them as 'anti-social' drug dealers purely because Cahill won't share his loot from a robbery with them, but its temporary resolution is so vaguely shot - something to do with Cahill donning a balaclava and joining the protesters which we're expected to find lovably cheeky - that it's just thrown away. Things are more successful in the last third as the pressure mounts and his army falls apart, but by then it's too late to really care. Adrian Dunbar, Maria Doyle Kennedy and the gorgeous Angeline Ball do good work in adoring supporting roles, but Jon Voight's hammy Garda beat cop seems to be there more for American sales than moral balance, overcompensating for Gleeson's comatose non-involvement in what feels like a total misfire. Come back Zardoz, all is forgiven.

Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: WARNING! This review will reveal the ending of the movie, "Scoop." If you don't want to know how the movie ends, don't read this review!

"Scoop" is so bad you'll think "Annie Hall" was a fluke.

It gets one star because you get to see Hugh Jackman's naked chest. That's the only thing "Scoop" has going for it.

Woody Allen's misogyny, and his fixation on women young enough, at this point, to be his granddaughter, has crippled any ability to make movies he may have had at any point.

The plot seems promising: a ghost, Ian McShane, directs a fluffy headed student, Scarlett Johansson, to investigate whether or not an English Lord, Hugh Jackman, is the notorious Tarot Card Killer of prostitutes. A magician, Woody Allen, helps the girl.

Promising plot notwithstanding, the movie completely lacks charm, or humor, or atmosphere. It's an amazingly leaden, amateurish effort for someone who has made even one previous film, never mind dozens. Perhaps Allen has had a stroke that has gone unreported in the press.

Much is made of the fact that unlike in his previous films, Woody Allen, now a septuagenarian, has FINALLY allowed a younger male lead to get the girl.

Not so. In fact, the plot is constructed in such a way so that the girl gets no one.

There is an early scene where Johansson, for no reason central to the movie, allows herself to be gotten drunk, and seduced, by a powerful, older director. "Seduced" is a euphemism for what happens. It's a "slam, bam, I've gotta go" kind of moment. It bears no relation to the plot whatsoever, and it cheapens Johansson in the viewer's eye. Why did Allen add that unnecessary scene to the movie? Because it shows a powerful director - like Allen - having sex with the female lead. Allen gets to have his cake and eat it, too.

Johansson is not yet an actress. She doesn't know how to command the screen except by wearing a tight, low cut top. She imitates Allen in a couple of scenes, and that just looks weird and sad.

It doesn't help that her character is scripted as a doll who can't function without a ghost, or an elderly and less than awe-inspiring magician, telling her what to do at every turn.

She is approximately half Jackman's age, and she comes across as a very vapid screen presence in their scenes together.

Audience members not obsessed with breasts deserve better in their heroines, and Jackman deserves better, too -- a script that gives the heroine some intelligence and agency, and an actress who can convey those qualities.

Hugh Jackman is similarly cheated by the script. Allen apparently can't stand it that Jackman is so stunningly good looking and young, and so he gives Jackman nothing to say or do. Like Johansson, he is used merely for his good looks. This is a shame, because, as Jackman has shown in any number of productions, from "Oklahoma" to "X Men," he CAN act.

Here's the big plot twist -- Jackman, suave, charming English Lord, really is a killer. So, though the movie says it is all about letting someone else, other than Allen, get the girl, she doesn't get anyone. Jackman, the man she's been making love to, is a man who murdered a prostitute. Nice, Woody. Nice way to punish your heroine for being beyond your grasp.

In a passive aggressive touch, Allen deprives his heroine of his own presence, as well, killing off his character, the magician, leaving Scarlett Johansson all alone at the end of the film.

A final note: at my screening, not a single audience member laughed at any point during the film. Always a bad sign when a film is advertised as a comedy.

Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
Not very interesting teen whodunit saved from being a turkey from some decent performances. The main cast consisting of Taye Diggs, Mia Kirshner, Dominique Swain and surprisingly Meredith Monroe are all good but the story is not very original.