An example of a movie review. negative.

A: Unless you are mentally ill or the most die hard segal fan you will tire of this horrendous excuse for a film in under 5 minutes.

The Plot - Even for a Seagal film, the plot is just stupid. I mean its not just bad, its barely coherent.

The Acting - Unbelievably wooden. Literally seen better acting in porno's. Ironically this film tries to cash in on this audience which a 'lesbian love scene' which is utterly cringe-worthy.

Special Effects - wouldn't look out of place in a 60's sword and sorcery flick.

Unless you suffer from insomnia and have exhausted all other cures, don't make the same mistake as i did and buy this DVD, as you will be asking for that hour and a half of your life back.

An example of a movie review. positive.

A: The film begins with Vincent Price about to begin his performance as a magician. However, mid-way through the very successful show, the police come and shut him down. It seems that his old boss had cheated him out of the tricks Price had created--even those he made on his own time at home. As a result, Price justifiably kills the evil man. The problem is that while the viewer understood why Price killed and most probably thought this was a GOOD thing, because Price was a bit mad, he just couldn't stop at one (sort of like eating Lay's Potato Chips).

The film was full of very creative and spectacular magic tricks (including a huge circular saw and a crematorium for the shows), great plot twists as well as exciting action. One thing you can't say about this film is that it is dull. While it's also far from subtle, it is fun throughout, though and well worth a look.

Had I never seen Vincent Price's version of HOUSE OF WAX, I probably would have liked THE MAD MAGICIAN a lot more and scored it an 8 or 9. That's because while THE MAD MAGICIAN is a wonderful film, it's highly reminiscent of the film that preceded it (HOUSE OF WAX). The bottom line is that since HOUSE OF WAX was so successful, the formula was re-hashed in the follow-up film. Both were made in 3-D, both have a plot where Price has every justification to kill but he can't stop once he's committed the first and both are great fun to watch. The biggest differences, and there are few, are that HOUSE OF WAX was in color and was more of a horror film and THE MAD MAGICIAN was definitely more of a mystery.

My advice is to see this film AND HOUSE OF WAX (the Price version only). They are both terrific 1950s horror films.

An example of a movie review. positive.

A:
What is most disturbing about this film is not that school killing sprees like the one depicted actually happen, but that the truth is they are carried out by teenagers like Cal and Andre...normal kids with normal families. By using a hand held camera technique a la Blair Witch, Ben Coccio succeeds in bringing us into the lives of two friends who have some issues with high school, although we aren't ever told exactly what is behind those issues. They seem to be typical -a lot of people hate high school, so what? A part of you just doesn't believe they will ever carry out the very well thought out massacre on Zero Day. The surveillance camera scenes in the school during the shooting are made all the more powerful for that reason. You can't believe it's really happening, and that it's really happened. The hand held camera technique also creates the illusion that this is not a scripted movie, a brilliant idea given the subject matter.