input: I remember when THE GOLDEN CHILD was released in 1986 it was universally panned by the critics , and I'm talking panned so badly that it more or less ended the glittering career of Eddie Murphy so I guess this movie has something going for it

It gets off to a bad start where Buddist monks kneel in front of a child with a blank expression on his face . Bad guys enter the temple

Child sits with blank expression

Bad guys chop up the monks

Child sits with blank expression

Bad guys pull out giant bird cage and stick the child inside who now sits with ... Go on guess ? You do get the impression that even if they were taking him for a sleepover at Michael Jackson's wonderland ranch he'd still give the same blank expression , this movie would be better titled THE WOODEN CHILD

The title sequence starts and being a movie from the 1980s a pop soundtrack features heavily . Obviously this might have been cool and funky at the time but now in 2004 it seems very dated . Not only that but it jars completely with the somewhat bloody opening . In fact that's the main problem ( And boy it's a serious one ) with this movie - The whole mood seems to change from scene to scene so much so that sometimes it's like watching scenes from totally different movies spliced together . I blame the director personally but it should also be pointed out that both the screenwriter and producer should share equal blame too . Did anyone know before shooting commenced what type of movie this was going to be ? It's part fantasy , part martial arts , part buddy movie , part comedy and it's all crap

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: Jason Alexander is a wonderful actor, but it's ridiculous to cast him as a cuddly romantic lead. The fact that he dances so well, croons so effectively, and throws himself into the part so completely somehow just made him seem all the more creepy. In his more cutesy moments (with the girl in the train station, in the final number with Rosie), I couldn't take my eyes off him he was so repellent. You keep expecting him to drop the nice-guy act and start snarling. Vanessa Williams was the real star, the only performance that was better than the 1963 movie. By the way, if you see a production of the stage musical, the 1963 movie and this 1995 movie, you'll see three versions that have more revisions (different songs, same songs assigned to different characters and in different situations) than any other musical I've ever seen.

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pos/neg ans:
negative