TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: jet li busted onto the american action movie scene , when he stole the show in 1998 's lethal weapon 4 , with his wicked looks , his nasty moves and his undeniable charisma .
it only took another two years for mega - producer joel silver to set him up in an all - american movie , primed to take over some of the empty action - hero seats left by alleged coke - head van damme and that pudgy guy named steven seagal .
would this film take li past his rival asian action counterparts , namely chow yun - fat and jackie chan ?
let 's find out .
plot : rival chinese and black gangster organizations fall further out of favor from one another , when members of their respective families start turning up dead .
that 's when badass jet li blasts into the picture to find out who the men were behind his brother 's death and to exact some of his own style of revenge .
critique : three words : not enough action !
simple enough ? not enough hong kong kickass jet li action to compensate for a horribly predictable screenplay , bad actors , crappy dialogue and oh - so many over - the - top melodramatic moments . and a romance angle ?
why , one must ask . . .
why ?
i love fight scenes and i really dig jet li too , but this little ditty barely contained three memorable action sequences , and jet , well , the poor dude was barely in the movie .
and i thought this was supposed to be his big break ?
how 'bout giving the slickster some more opportunities to show us his kung - fu fighting chops , slap him in a few more scenes , and give him more chances to practice his acting / english abilities ?
what a letdown .
even black mask was more entertaining than this glossed up , empty shell of a film .
in fact , i am sure that more time was spent gathering the " hits " for the soundtrack of this film , than were on the so - called " screenplay " .
i felt like i was watching a soundtrack rather than a movie most of the time .
the sad part about the bad script is that it would n't matter so much if the film actually had some decent actors spouting out the tacky lines .
but no , save lindo and aaliyah , who were n't too shabby , i thought the rest of the cast was picked primarily from their inability to deliver lines convincingly .
and what was the deal with the whole nfl franchise deal run by some 15-year old looking guy , acting like he 's the overlord of a drug ring ? !
what a mess .
then again , i do n't want it to seem like i 'm complaining solely about the story which was completely foreseeable , since we all go to see these movies for the action anyway , not the story .
well , i guess that 's what disappointed me the most out of this film .
there were a couple of cool fight scenes with li , but simply not enough to satisfy my overall craving .
also , as much as i love the way they incorporate wires and special effects in some of their stunts , a couple of the exaggerated fight scenes were simply too obvious a stunt .
it should be seamless , fellas , not necessarily against the laws of gravity !
the one cool thing that was original in the movie was the way in which the director showed us some of the inside cracklings of the human body when penetrated by a blow , but that simple creative touch could n't save the rest of this film 's uninteresting plot movements .
i 'm disappointed for jet li that this film did n't give him the real opportunity to star in a good story with many great action scenes .
hopefully , the next time will be a charm for this charismatic actor .
for now , i just hope that for his sake , the film 's title is n't a premonition of the movie 's ultimate fate at the box - office .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: and now the high - flying hong kong style of filmmaking has made its way down to the classics , and it is n't pretty .
this time out the nod to asia goes by way of france in the excruciating bland and lukewarm production of the musketeer , a version of dumas 's the three musketeers .
by bringing in popular asian actor / stunt coordinator xing xing xiong -- whose only prior american attempts at stunt choreography have been the laughable van damme vehicle double team and the dennis rodman cinematic joke simon sez -- our musketeers are thrown into the air to do their fighting .
the end result is a tepid and dull action / adventure rip - off that stinks of indiana jones and bad asian kung fu .
the story is so simple my grandmother could have adapted the screenplay .
d'artagnan ( justin chambers ) is the vengeful son of a slain musketeer .
he travels to paris to join the royal musketeers and find the man that killed his parents .
in paris , he meets the cunning cardinal richelieu ( stephen rea ) , who is trying to overthrow the king , and richelieu 's man - in - black associate febre ( tim roth ) , the killer of his folks .
he finds the musketeers in paris disbanded and drunk , so he rounds up aramis ( nick moran ) , athos ( jan gregor kremp ) and porthos ( steven spiers ) to free the musketeer 's wrongfully imprisoned leader treville from the king 's prison .
d'artagnan and his new frisky love interest / chambermaid francesca ( mena suvari ) play footsy and coo at each other as the cardinal hunts down the musketeers until finally the queen ( catherine deneuve ) ends up being captured by the menancing febre , forcing the musketeers to regroup , with d'artagnan leading the charge , and save the day .
director peter hyams ( end of days ) obviously wanted to blend eastern and western filmmaking styles , but here it 's a disaster .
one problem is that , in reality , most eastern films have taken their lead from western ones .
jet li 's high risk is a rip - off of die hard -- not the other way around .
ironically , there is awfully little swordplay or action in the film at all -- maybe ten minutes of swashbuckling spread over five scenes .
most asian action films carry the bulk of their production with 20- to 30-minute action sequences , because they know the scenes have to carry the picture .
the musketeer instead weighs itself down with a predictable and monotonous screenplay by gene quintano ( sudden death ) , horrible acting
by stephen rea and tim roth , and the prosaic attempt of justin chambers ( the wedding planner ) to deliver his mousy self as a leader .
chambers ' d'artangnan is n't a musketeer -- he 's a mouseketeer ! and hyam 's use of candles and torches to light the grime and filth of 17th century paris are well - noted , but that 's the only standout in
an overall flat production .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: battlefield earth is the worst film of 2000 , and i guarantee you that nothing else this year will even come close .
in fact , i 'll be surprised if i see anything this bad in the next ten years .
based on the novel by scientology guru l . ron hubbard , battlefield earth begins and we immediately find out two pieces of key information .
it 's the year 3000 , and an alien race called the psychlos ( which sounds like a tag team of mexican wrestlers ) conquered our planet in nine minutes .
ok , we are all of 10 seconds in and i have a zillion questions racing through my mind .
when were we conquered ?
the audience is led to believe that this happened about 1 , 000 years earlier , and if that is the case then we 're going to get into a whole bunch of problems later ( trust me . . .
keep reading ) .
also , why do n't we get to see earth get conquered ?
how the hell do you make a popcorn sci - fi flick and not deliver the goods on the one event that sets up the film ?
humans now live as cavemen or slave labor , and for the film 's first act we focus on one particular cavemen group outside of denver , colorado .
they grunt and groan and babble about monsters .
so , when the psychlos conquered earth , were the only humans not captured a herd of newborn babies that crawled their way to safety in the hills ?
none of these characters have any knowledge of the planet being conquered ( whenever that was ) .
this is definitely not the way to start an action / sci - fi film .
one of the humans wanders out into the wilderness and stumbles across what he thinks is a monster , and he begins to fight it .
the " monster " turns out to be a dinosaur from an old miniature golf course .
he turns around and sees all sorts of other characters from the golf course , with some shrubs growing over them .
so , in 1 , 000 years this stupid little golf course has stood the test of time , with only a few weeds growing over it ?
anyway , some of the humans are captured by the psychlos led by terl ( john travolta ) a smarmy and opportunistic alien planning on stealing a recently discovered gold deposit .
the cavemen ( led by barry pepper ) are forced to do their bidding or whatever , but eventually they gain the upper hand and reclaim the planet , or something .
so these cavemen are able to do what earth failed to do 1 , 000 years earlier ?
and , we 're supposed to believe that earth was conquered in nine minutes by a group of buffoonish aliens who ca n't even handle a few cavemen ?
one of the ways the humans reclaim the planet is by taking control of abandoned air force jets and using them to fight the psychlos .
so jets left unattended for 1 , 000 years are still able to fly ?
please , if i leave my car unattended for two weeks
i have to replace every fluid and hose under the hood .
why did the psychlos leave jets around anyway ?
should n't they have destroyed military installations during their massive nine minute campaign against us ?
the psychlos refer to humans as " man animals " but yet dogs are still " dogs " .
why are n't they " dog animals " ?
the psychlos are after mining earth 's precious resources , but for 1 , 000 years are unaware of fort knox ?
why do i even care at this point ?
i 'm a fan of travolta 's and i 'm glad to see he 's back on the a - list in hollywood ( despite the fact that he occasionally puts out crowd pleasing dreck like michael and phenomenon ) .
but how did he possibly think this was a good movie ? and how did he think he was giving a good performance here ?
he 's more than capable of making a menacing villain ( see broken arrow and face / off ) but whenever his character came on screen
i could n't hold back my laughter .
now despite the different facial features members of this alien race seem to have , travolta just looks like travolta .
all of the other aliens have weird foreheads or other pointy bones on their face , but travolta just has a goatee .
also , travolta 's acts with a sort of phony upper - class snooty accent and constantly whines about bureaucratic nonsense back on his home world .
ooooo , scary villain .
as a producer he should know better and as an actor he should definitely know better .
you can make a dumb but good sci - fi film ( i love independence day for example ) , but there is absolutely nothing entertaining about battlefield earth .
i did everything i possibly could to stay awake during the screening . . .
i cleaned my glasses , walked around the theater , made a grocery list , chose my lottery numbers for the week , replayed super bowl xxv in my head ( with commercials ) . . . and still was compelled to scrutinize the insides of my eyelids .
by the time we actually reach the year 3000 , people should still be avoiding this film .
folks , save your cash . .
do n't go see it , do n't rent it , and do n't buy it
.
you 'd be more entertained by taking the money you 'd use for this movie and just throwing it into the wind , watching it sail away ( hell , send it to us here at the jacksonville film journal .
. .
we 'll entertain you plenty with that kind of money ) .
unless of course you 're just captivated by countless slow motion shots of barry pepper running , which is just about all you 'll come away with from this movie .
that , and a headache .
[ editor 's note : for some reason though , the day after my screening i converted to scientology .
i 'm not sure why . . .
something just made me feel compelled make the choice . ]

SOLUTION:
N