instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
when walt disney pictures announced a live - action feature based on the ' 60s cartoon series of " mr . magoo , " special interests groups representing the vision - impaired let out a cry of dismay .
mr .
magoo , they claimed , would be an insult to the men and women they represented .
in fact , they were wrong .
mr .
magoo is not just an insult to the blind and near - blind ,
it 's an insult to every human being who has the misfortune to suffer through this dreadfully unfunny , 90 minute atrocity .
it 's stating the obvious to remark that disney appears to have run out of original ideas
.
look at their roster of 1996 and 1997 releases , and you 'll see a shocking list of retreads , including 101 dalmatians , george of the jungle , jungle2jungle , that darn cat ! , flubber , and now mr . magoo .
the best of these ( george of the jungle ) was mildly entertaining .
the worst , mr . magoo ,
exposes just how painful a bad movie experience can be .
the first problem with mr .
magoo is the script .
despite the collaboration of naked gun scribe pat proft , mr . magoo is comically barren .
from beginning to end , there 's not a laugh to be found .
every attempt at humor -- and there are lots of them -- falls flat with an audible thud .
you 'd think that out of the dozens of gags jammed into this film , at least a few would work , but that 's not the case .
i 've had more laughs during ingmar bergman pictures .
then there 's leslie nielsen , who looks , sounds , and acts absolutely nothing like the animated character ( memorably voiced by jim backus ) .
in the past , nielsen has proven his comic aptitude with roles in movies like airplane and the naked gun .
lately , however , he has been getting lazy , taking parts in the likes of dracula : dead and loving it , spy hard , and mr . magoo .
even if nielsen was in top form , it would take an incredible stretch of imagination to see him as magoo ( especially since we 're reminded of the original by the short cartoon segments that open and close the film ) , but " top form " is not a phrase i would use to describe his performance here .
this is strictly a take - the - money - and- run operation .
the story , which , like many disney stories , can be described in one long sentence : magoo is the only witness to the theft of a rare jewel from a museum , and , as he is trying to apprehend the thieves on his own , the police mistake him for the robber .
the cops are played by ernie hudson and stephen tobolowsky , who take their lumps early and often .
the bad guys are kelly lynch ( who does a lot of martial arts - type kicking ) , nick chinlund , and malcolm mcdowell ( who has the good sense to look embarrassed ) .
matt keeslar portrays one of magoo 's sidekicks -- his nephew , waldo .
the bumbling man 's other , more interesting companion is a dog named angus .
most of mr .
magoo 's humor comes in the form of failed slapstick .
the cartoon violence level in this film does n't approach that of home alone 3 or flubber , but it 's still pretty acute , with characters getting hit on the head with sledgehammers and knocked off snowy precipices .
there 's a non - violent bit with magoo preparing a chicken dinner that could have been funny if it was handled better , but , compared to mr .
bean 's recent , similar misadventure , it does n't hold up well .
then there is the series of lame jokes that result from magoo 's near blindness , such as the occasion when he mistakes a wild animal for a baby .
i 'm willing to cut director stanley tong a little slack .
tong , a hong kong film maker trying to break into the hollywood market , has helmed several jackie chan movies , including first strike , rumble in the bronx , and supercop .
his chief talent , that of choreographing martial arts fights , is wasted here ( despite some high kicking by kelly lynch ) .
like john woo ( hard target ) and ringo lam ( maximum risk ) before him , it appears that tong has been consigned to the purgatory of making a bad movie as his entry into the american mainstream .
it is worth noting that , unlike many disney films which hold a perverse appeal for the under-10 crowd while driving parents to distraction , mr . magoo appears to bore viewers of all ages .
the screening i attended was wall - to - wall kids , and , for the most part ,
they did n't seem to be enjoying themselves .
when the film was over , i asked one little girl what she thought of it .
her pained expression confirmed the adage that a picture can indeed be worth a thousand words .
mr .
magoo is the kind of movie that should be rejected by any potential viewer
, sight unseen .
answer:
N

question:
"
what 's your favorite new york moment ? "
" this one 's climbing the charts .
" starring john cusack , kate beckinsale , eugene levy , molly shannon .
directed by peter chelsom .
rated pg-13 .
there 's no doubt that 95 % of romantic comedies follow a distinct pattern
: guy sees girl , guy wants girl , guy goes through unreasonable obstacles to get girl , guy gets girl .
in rare cases , the genders are flipped .
predictability is a given .
rarely , though , is a romantic comedy as cheap , as obvious , or as pointless as serendipity , a film that uses its " theme " as an excuse for its plot contrivances .
" lightweight " does n't begin to describe it .
this is like anti - gravity .
it begins in a new york city bloomingdale 's , a product placement that rivals cast away 's fedex for sheer blatancy .
jonathan trager ( john cusack ) and sara thomas ( kate beckinsale ) both go for the same pair of gloves .
after going through the perfunctory motions , jonathan gets to keep the gloves and the two of them go out for ice cream , followed by ice skating .
jonathan falls hard , and sara is charmed . when she writes her name and number down on a piece of paper , a truck rumbles by and blows it out of her hand .
she takes this as a sign from fate that they should n't be together ; jonathan is flabbergasted . to pacify him , she comes up with an idea : jonathan will write his number on a 5 dollar bill , which she will promptly spend .
when she gets home , she will write her name and number inside a book ( " love in the time of cholera " ) and sell it to a used bookstore .
if the bill gets back to her or the book to him , it will mean that they are meant to be together .
three years later .
both sara and jonathan are now engaged to other love interests .
both realize they are n't content .
both go looking for the other .
what happens now is so absurd that i 'm almost tempted to recommend the film for the sake of seeing it .
the two of them run circles around each other in a set of incredible " coincidences " that i would describe as contrivances if it were n't for the film
oh - so - cleverly dismissing that criticism by building its plot around " serendipity .
"
of course , since the movie is about fate , the screenwriter can do anything he damn well pleases .
i 'm not buying it .
there 's no suspense in any of this because we know exactly what 's going to happen , but serendipity insists on drilling its purportedly " adorable " non - story into our heads .
instead of " will they meet ?
"
the question we 're asking is " when will they meet already ? " to make matters worse , every " coincidence " is telegraphed from a mile away ; by the last reel
i was bored enough to actively look for signs that something else " incredible " was going to happen .
cusack is fine and beckinsale , at least , is n't saddled with another lumbering , clunky screenplay ( she 's had bad luck , what with brokedown palace and pearl harbor on her resume ) , just an inanely pointless one .
serendipity also relieves the tedium with the amazing eugene levy , who plays a snarky bloomingdale 's salesman .
what 's the interest in watching a movie that spirals around and around a predestined
( no pun intended ) conclusion ?
serendipity wants to tug at the heartstrings , but it only tests our patience .
answer:
N

question:
capsule : a ham - handed and over / underwritten morality play masquerading as entertainment ,
so muddled it does n't even know what it 's really advocating , if anything .
a time to kill has been hailed as the best of the grisham adaptations , and it 's easy to see why
: it presents a strong , almost rancorously so , story ; it is full of good actors ( samuel l .
jackson , matthew mcconaughey , sandra bullock , kevin spacey , charles dutton ) ; and
it 's ostensibly about some important social issue that we 're all tangling with .
it is not , however , a good movie , and all of the reasons i 've listed above have something to do with why .
right from the beginning , the movie is dead - set on stacking its deck as thoroughly and unrepentantly as possible .
a pair of redneck whites , boozed and drugged out of their minds , kidnap a young black girl , abuse and rape her horribly , and leave her for dead .
after their arrest , their father ( jackson ) takes an assault rifle and guns them down on the way to trial .
mcconaughey is then drafted in as his lawyer , and the rest is somehow strangely predictable courtoom movie dramatics .
the acting is not quite what it should be , given the cast we have .
sandra bullock ( who is a good actress but not a serious one ) looks clueless ; spacey 's accent switches itself on and off at random ( and he 's given a totally thankless role to play as well , a role without an iota of depth ) ; and mcconaughey 's role is stamped from the cardboard back of a cereal box .
the most memorable role is donald sutherland 's , and his is a bit part .
i always consider it an index of a movie 's desperation when it is able to present shocking and outlandish events , and somehow not have them generate an ounce of impact .
there is one scene -- a riot outside the courtroom -- that should have created incredible tension , but winds up playing out like a textbook exercise on how not to deploy a scene like this .
because the movie does n't know what it 's really about ,
it * ca n't * generate any genuine tension , and so it has to artifically inject tension through clumsy plotting .
one of the ways it does this is by throwing in a whole subplot about a bunch of vicious kkk cross - burners -- which is tidied up so neatly that it borders on the nihilistic .
i was reminded of the despicable betrayed , which tried to tart up a fundamentally empty story by injecting vile , graphic acts of racism as little more than an attention - getter .
the movie immolates an enormous amount of its potential by making a few critical mistakes .
first of all , the jackson character is not hard to judge ; there 's no tension in his dilemma .
he 's self - admittedly guilty and should be sent to jail , no matter how moral his crusade .
the old saw about how no court in the land would convict him , if he was white , is supposed to be the underlying theme of the movie , but it 's never developed into an organic component of the story .
it just sort of floats around on top while the movie grinds away furiously with its plot mechanics .
another mistake is in motivational logic : by not having the two white thugs arraigned first -- or maybe tried and then dismissed from lack of evidence , say -- we have that much less empathy for jackson 's character .
i 'm probably supposed to think that just because he had his daughter raped , we are * automatically * supposed to feel empathy for him , but that 's precisely the kind of facile thinking that makes real justice impossible .
( see the virgin spring for more on that note . )
is jackson 's character then simply insane ?
that prospect is n't given terribly serious treatment either .
one of the most aggravating things about coutroom movies is how little they seem to know about how the law works , or how lawyers get their information .
mcconaughey 's character makes an important slipup late in the movie , when one of his witnesses turns out to have been convicted of a capital offense .
how did the prosecution get this information ?
how come he did n't get it ?
the whole way these questions get handled are symptomatic of the movie 's way of dealing with complex legal and moral questions in cheap screenwriterly slam - bang fashion .
this is the biggest problem : the movie is n't about jackson 's character , or his dilemma , or this case , or any of its ( frequently interesting despite the porcine writing and direction ) characters .
it 's not ultimately about anything at all , except its stupid geared - down plot , which inches onwards in one unremarkable scene after another towards a totally contrived ending .
at two and a half hours , the movie is overlong and drastically overwritten
: there 's endless stuff about things which ultimately add up to nothing , and no writing about the material that should really matter .
it 's all handwaving .
the closing argument are also sneaky and underhanded , and underscored my suspicion that the movie is manipulative and unfair .
it 's not easy to make a movie about something .
the other day i saw kurosawa 's phenomenal rashomon , a movie that is really about the way people deal with truth and reality ( or do n't ) .
a time to kill is as empty and ponderous a movie as i 've seen in a long time .
answer:
N