In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
One example: plot : two teen couples go to a church party , drink and then drive .
they get into an accident .
one of the guys dies , but his girlfriend continues to see him in her life , and has nightmares .
what 's the deal ?
watch the movie and " sorta " find out . . .
critique : a mind - fuck movie for the teen generation that touches on a very cool idea , but presents it in a very bad package .
which is what makes this review an even harder one to write , since i generally applaud films which attempt to break the mold , mess with your head and such ( lost highway & memento ) , but there are good and bad ways of making all types of films , and these folks just did n't snag this one correctly
.
they seem to have taken this pretty neat concept , but executed it terribly .
so what are the problems with the movie ?
well , its main problem is that it 's simply too jumbled
.
it starts off " normal " but then downshifts into this " fantasy " world in which you , as an audience member ,
have no idea what 's going on
.
there are dreams , there are characters coming back from the dead , there are others who look like the dead , there are strange apparitions , there are disappearances , there are a looooot of chase scenes , there are tons of weird things that happen , and most of it is simply not explained .
now i personally do n't mind trying to unravel a film every now and then , but when all it does is give me the same clue over and over again , i get kind of fed up after a while , which is this film 's biggest problem .
it 's obviously got this big secret to hide , but it seems to want to hide it completely until its final five minutes .
and do they make things entertaining , thrilling or even engaging , in the meantime ?
not really .
the sad part is that the arrow and i both dig on flicks like this , so we actually figured most of it out by the half - way point , so all of the strangeness after that did start to make a little bit of sense , but it still did n't the make the film all that more entertaining .
i guess the bottom line with movies like this is that you should always make sure that the audience is " into it " even before they are given the secret password to enter your world of understanding .
i mean , showing melissa sagemiller running away from visions for about 20 minutes throughout the movie is just plain lazy ! !
okay , we get it .
. .
there are people chasing her and we do n't know who they are .
do we really need to see it over and over again ?
how about giving us different scenes offering further insight into all of the strangeness going down in the movie ?
apparently , the studio took this film away from its director and chopped it up themselves , and it shows .
there might 've been a pretty decent teen mind - fuck movie in here somewhere , but i guess " the suits " decided that turning it into a music video with little edge , would make more sense .
the actors are pretty good for the most part , although wes bentley just seemed to be playing the exact same character that he did in american beauty , only in a new neighborhood .
but my biggest kudos go out to sagemiller , who holds her own throughout the entire film , and actually has you feeling her character 's unraveling .
overall , the film does n't stick
because it does n't entertain , it 's confusing , it rarely excites and
it feels pretty redundant for most of its runtime , despite a pretty cool ending and explanation to all of the craziness that came before it .
oh ,
and by the way , this is not a horror or teen slasher flick . . .
it 's just packaged to look that way because someone is apparently assuming that the genre is still hot with the kids .
it also wrapped production two years ago and has been sitting on the shelves ever since .
whatever . .
. skip it !
where 's joblo coming from ?
a nightmare of elm street 3 ( 7/10 ) - blair witch 2 ( 7/10 ) - the crow ( 9/10 ) - the crow : salvation ( 4/10 )
- lost highway ( 10/10 ) - memento ( 10/10 ) - the others ( 9/10 ) - stir of echoes ( 8/10 )
Solution is here: N
Explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Now, solve this: the rich legacy of cinema has left us with certain indelible images .
the tinkling christmas tree bell in
" it 's a wonderful life .
"
bogie 's speech at the airport in " casablanca .
" little elliott 's flying bicycle , silhouetted by the moon in " e . t .
" and now , " starship troopers " director paul verhoeven adds one more image that will live in our memories forever : doogie houser doing a vulcan mind meld with a giant slug .
" starship troopers , " loosely based on the robert heinlein novel , is the story of an interstellar war between humans and giant insects .
in the hands of verhoeven , the mammoth sci - fi battle flick is one of the most astonishingly bad films ever made , a monument to inept filmmaking on a colossal scale . to put it simply , it 's a bug bomb .
in " robocop " and " total recall , " verhoeven displayed a gift for creating an entertaining mix of violence , special effects and social satire , and " starship troopers " starts off in similar fashion , with a tongue - in - cheek futuristic military recruitment ad that shows promise .
things go downhill fast , though , as we meet our heroes , a group of buenos aires teens preparing to graduate from high school .
inexplicably , johnny rico , carmen ibenez , dizzy flores and xander barcalow are played by square - jawed anglo kids who look like they just stepped out of a mountain dew commercial .
it 's a veritable " alpha centuri 90210 " as we watch the love - smitten teens squabble in the name of love .
michael ironside plays their teacher , who waves around a cheesy fake severed arm while lecturing about civic responsibilities .
eventually , the kids join the military , with dreams of glory in their addled little minds .
one of their classmates , carl jenkins ( " doogie houser 's " neil patrick harris , ) snags a job in military intelligence because of his strong psychic abilities .
he displays his gift by psychically ordering a pet ferret to crawl up his mother 's leg .
a long , dull boot camp sequence follows , enlivened only by an extended coed shower scene where the recruits swap snappy banter as the " showgirls " director 's camera roams over their buff bodies .
finally , a full hour into the film , the war finally starts and we meet the enemy .
the bugs hail from klendathu and colonize planets by hurling their spores into space .
they attack starships by spinning around and firing deadly plasma blasts from their rears .
yes , incredible as it seems , the bugs actually kill with cosmic farts .
a phenomenally large amount of money was spent creating the computer animated insects and the results are mixed at best .
sweeping distant shots depicting hordes of giant bugs racing to attack are both impressive and scary , but the close - ups are a different matter .
the insects have an odd , artificial look , like origami creations with a mottled plastic coating .
the attack scenes are intensely violent , as one would expect from verhoeven , but the overall look is too phony to generate any real tension .
while the action is frantic , the military strategy , wildly illogical even by hollywood standards ,
grows tiresome quickly .
verhoeven tries to spice things up by throwing in more satiric news coverage , but the faux - jingoistic scenes of children " doing their part for the war effort " by squishing roaches on a sidewalk are n't enough to make up for the long stretches of sheer dreck .
one can only guess what paul verhoeven was trying to do here .
his customary one part satire , two parts ultra - violence formula is way out of whack , and most of the film just flounders
.
in " showgirls " fashion , some scenes are almost bad enough to be good .
an intergalactic kegger party , with jake busey playing " dixie " on a green plexiglas fiddle , has a certain bizarre appeal .
a sex scene between two of the teens achieves a smarmy charm , enhanced a few minutes later when the female receives a fatal jab from a bug , but tells her hero that she does n't mind dying .
"
it 's okay ,
" she gasps , " i got to have you !
" and then , of course , there 's doogie 's mind meld with a bug .
it 's possible that verhoeven was attempting to create an homage to the era of the original novel .
heinlein 's pre- " stranger in a strange land " books were aimed at adolescent males , and " starship troopers " has the antiseptic retro - future look of late 50s / early 60s sci - fi .
the one cityscape shown is a jetsons - like gleaming metropolis , with flying cars whizzing past an obvious matte painting .
the hairstyles are retro too , straight from the frankie avalon , annette funicello school of fashion .
ultimately , verhoeven 's motives are irrelevant .
he has produce a gargantuan film that fails as an action film or as a social satire .
it even fails to be an entertaining bad movie . avoid " starship troopers " at all costs .
Solution:
N