An example of a movie review. negative.

A: This movie is like real life, by which I mean - not a lot happens in the available 2 hours or so, and not much game plan or plot is evidenced by the frequently invisible cast (their invisibility being due to the "experimental" lighting as mentioned by many reviewers).

A big bore. No big surprise that Altman helms this - he is a very variable performer (yes we all loved "Gosford Park", but "Pret A Porter" anyone? Kansas City? Dr T. and the Women? Aaargh), but the fact that the raw material is a John Grisham tale, and the excellent cast that you will perceive through the gathering gloaming of your insistent slumber - makes this truly a masterpiece of bad film. And no, it is not "so bad it's good".

It's just bad.

An example of a movie review. positive.

A: I don't like "grade inflation" but I just had to give this a 10. I can't think of anything I didn't like about it. I saw it last night and woke up today thinking about it. I'm sure that the Hollywood remake that someone told me about, with J Lo and Richard Gear, will be excellent, but this original Japanese version from 1996 was so emotional and thought-provoking for me that I am hard-pressed to think of any way that it could be improved, or its setting changed to a different culture.

A story I found worth watching, and with o fist-fight scenes or guns going off or anything of the sort! Imagine that!

All the characters seemed well-developed, ... even non-primary characters had good character-development and enjoyable acting, and the casting seemed very appropriate.

It's always hard to find a good movie-musical in our day and age, and perhaps this doesn't quite qualify (there is plenty of learning how to dance, but no singing) but I really think that Gene Kelly and others who championed a place for dance in our lives would have thought so very highly of this film and the role of dance in helping to tell a story about a middle aged man, successful with a family in Japan, looking for something... he knows not precisely what.

To the team of people in Japan who contributed to this film, thank you for creating and doing it.

An example of a movie review. negative.

A:
What a sad sight these TV stalwarts make, running out the clock on their careers stumbling about a little rusting hulk of a ship - boat might be more appropriate. The whole production feels cheap and shabby, and it's not helped by a "big name" star who is barely capable of spitting out the few lines that he's given in a credible fashion.

At no time do the supporting cast rise above the material; they're clearly watching the clock here. Bang out the scenes, get the pay cheque, go home, and try to forget all about it.

It's not particularly badly scripted or filmed; there are no real clangers, it's just utterly anodyne, and shot in a very limited number of cramped sets with a small cast of extras. The pacing is a little bizarre; an embarrassingly tentative romantic sub-plot is only begun after the main action starts, which makes it feel irrelevant.

Maiden Voyage scores a couple of points for being competently scored, and for being a fun game of "spot the Kiwi bit parters"; most of the cast are graduates of Shortland Street or Xena: Warrior Princess. The saddest thing about this production is that this film probably constitutes their big break.