In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
One example is below.
Q: plot : two teen couples go to a church party , drink and then drive .
they get into an accident .
one of the guys dies , but his girlfriend continues to see him in her life , and has nightmares .
what 's the deal ?
watch the movie and " sorta " find out . . .
critique : a mind - fuck movie for the teen generation that touches on a very cool idea , but presents it in a very bad package .
which is what makes this review an even harder one to write , since i generally applaud films which attempt to break the mold , mess with your head and such ( lost highway & memento ) , but there are good and bad ways of making all types of films , and these folks just did n't snag this one correctly
.
they seem to have taken this pretty neat concept , but executed it terribly .
so what are the problems with the movie ?
well , its main problem is that it 's simply too jumbled
.
it starts off " normal " but then downshifts into this " fantasy " world in which you , as an audience member ,
have no idea what 's going on
.
there are dreams , there are characters coming back from the dead , there are others who look like the dead , there are strange apparitions , there are disappearances , there are a looooot of chase scenes , there are tons of weird things that happen , and most of it is simply not explained .
now i personally do n't mind trying to unravel a film every now and then , but when all it does is give me the same clue over and over again , i get kind of fed up after a while , which is this film 's biggest problem .
it 's obviously got this big secret to hide , but it seems to want to hide it completely until its final five minutes .
and do they make things entertaining , thrilling or even engaging , in the meantime ?
not really .
the sad part is that the arrow and i both dig on flicks like this , so we actually figured most of it out by the half - way point , so all of the strangeness after that did start to make a little bit of sense , but it still did n't the make the film all that more entertaining .
i guess the bottom line with movies like this is that you should always make sure that the audience is " into it " even before they are given the secret password to enter your world of understanding .
i mean , showing melissa sagemiller running away from visions for about 20 minutes throughout the movie is just plain lazy ! !
okay , we get it .
. .
there are people chasing her and we do n't know who they are .
do we really need to see it over and over again ?
how about giving us different scenes offering further insight into all of the strangeness going down in the movie ?
apparently , the studio took this film away from its director and chopped it up themselves , and it shows .
there might 've been a pretty decent teen mind - fuck movie in here somewhere , but i guess " the suits " decided that turning it into a music video with little edge , would make more sense .
the actors are pretty good for the most part , although wes bentley just seemed to be playing the exact same character that he did in american beauty , only in a new neighborhood .
but my biggest kudos go out to sagemiller , who holds her own throughout the entire film , and actually has you feeling her character 's unraveling .
overall , the film does n't stick
because it does n't entertain , it 's confusing , it rarely excites and
it feels pretty redundant for most of its runtime , despite a pretty cool ending and explanation to all of the craziness that came before it .
oh ,
and by the way , this is not a horror or teen slasher flick . . .
it 's just packaged to look that way because someone is apparently assuming that the genre is still hot with the kids .
it also wrapped production two years ago and has been sitting on the shelves ever since .
whatever . .
. skip it !
where 's joblo coming from ?
a nightmare of elm street 3 ( 7/10 ) - blair witch 2 ( 7/10 ) - the crow ( 9/10 ) - the crow : salvation ( 4/10 )
- lost highway ( 10/10 ) - memento ( 10/10 ) - the others ( 9/10 ) - stir of echoes ( 8/10 )
A: N
Rationale: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").
Q: you 've got to think twice before you go see a movie with a title like maximum risk .
the title is generic .
it 's meaningless .
and i ca n't believe it 's good business .
when you pick up the phone and dial 777-film , how in the world are you supposed to remember that the new jean - claude van damme movie , the one that looked kind of cool in the trailers and is directed by some chinese hot shot , is called , geez , maximum risk ? yuck .
the movie itself deserves your attention .
for sweet bloody thrills , this one beats the summer blockbuster competition hands - down .
only mission : impossible came close to delivering as skillful a thriller , and i 'll give maximum risk the edge simply because it 's not as slick as the tom cruise picture , and therefore more gratifying in its execution .
much to my surprise , van damme continues to develop as a pleasant , unpretentious action hero .
his track record is n't as solid as schwarzenegger 's , but he 's a hell of a lot more adventurous than arnold .
in 1993 , van damme worked with hong kong 's premier hardcore action director , john woo , on a fairly lame movie called hard target .
( if you can find a bootleg copy , woo 's radically different director 's cut is much better than what was eventually released . )
this follow - up is directed by ringo lam ( city on fire , full contact ) , whose hong kong films are distinguished action pictures that have consistently played second fiddle to woo 's more operatic offerings .
the surprise here is that maximum risk is a more effective hollywood action flick than either hard target or woo 's subsequent broken arrow .
here 's the rundown .
van damme plays a french cop named alain moreau who is shaken when a policeman friend ( jean - hugues anglade ) finds a corpse that 's alain 's exact double .
turns out alain was separated at birth from his twin brother , michael , who has been killed by some russian heavies ( and some strangely american looking cops ) .
alain does some investigating .
he finds that michael had booked a flight to new york city , and received a message from someone there named alex bohemia .
assuming michael 's identity , alain flies to new york and gets tangled up with michael 's girlfriend ( natasha henstridge ) , the fbi , and the russian mob in little odessa .
that 's as much as you need to know .
the story is adequate , but not overly involving -- and the major plot points are basically explained to you twice , just in case you go out for popcorn at the wrong moment .
there 's a love story , too , but i did n't find it terribly convincing , partly because ex - model henstridge is too high - strung in her high - profile debut
( she had precious few lines as the alien ice queen in species ) .
she 's great to look at , and she can certainly read a line , but what she does here ca n't really be described as " acting .
" of course , " acting " is n't really what she was hired for ( i lost track of whether her shirt comes off more often than van damme 's ) .
the movie is exceptionally violent , bordering on gratuity .
( keep that in mind when planning your date . )
the stunts are spectacular , and the fact that you can spot van damme 's stand - in makes his work no less impressive .
there 's only so much you can do with a car wreck , but this movie makes crisp , effective use of pile - ups in a handful of frenzied destruction derbies .
and lam has a surprising , innovative sense of exactly where the camera should go to catch any bit of action .
the main difference between lam and woo , i believe , is that while woo relies on sheer spectacle to gas up his action show pieces , lam has figured out more about using cinematic space and double - barreled points of view to make things run .
do n't get me wrong -- when chow yun - fat soars through space pumping bullets out of two pistols and chewing on a toothpick with glass and confetti littering the air around him in woo 's hard - boiled , it 's an amazing moment .
but it 's a moment that 's hard to reproduce in hollywood .
( for one thing , hollywood does n't yet have chow yun - fat ! )
while woo 's hollywood movies look like the work of a talented upstart , maximum risk is a surprisingly confident picture .
the very first shot of the film is an awkward overhead view of a chase through the streets of a european city , but lam 's use of odd camera angles becomes more efficient later on .
the film editing is a particularly savvy complement to lam 's shooting style , accentuating rather than amplifying the action .
the performances could have used some fine tuning ( in particular , there 's an annoying , overwritten manhattan cab driver in the early scenes who should have been toned down or jettisoned completely ) , and the movie does n't always overcome the limitations of its genre .
the story is a little mundane , although there are some effective moments involving van damme 's unrequited feelings toward the brother he never knew he had .
but it 's not often that hollywood cranks out a truly satisfying action picture
,
and it 's doubly surprising that this one should come with a mere whisper of publicity .
van damme fans should treat themselves to what may well be the man 's best movie , and international action buffs will no doubt savor this flavorful hong kong / hollywood hybrid .
A:
P