In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
Example: 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 )
Example solution: N
Example explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Problem: so what do you get when you mix together plot elements from various successful sci - fi films such as close encounters of the third kind , 2001 : a space odyssey , apollo 13 and contact ?
well , whatever it is , you 'd sure as hell hope that it would be a thousand times better than this shoddy attempt at such a melange , considering the disastrous results we 're left with here .
this is a film that takes a little bit of everything , but ultimately adds up to a lot of nothing !
it 's like i said . . .
this movie sucks .
plot : a rescue crew of astronauts is sent down to mars in the year 2020 , after an unknown energy force leads to a loss of contact with the previous gang of space aviators to visit the red planet .
critique : extremely underwhelming is the best way to describe this movie .
uneven
, would be another .
the trailer for this movie actually showed some promise , the buzz around it had been so - so , and even the film itself starts off with a decent first twenty minutes , all leading you to believe that it 's actually going to go " somewhere " .
but it is n't long before
the entire movie downshifts into neutral , features more space walks than anything interesting on the cherry - colored planet , tries too hard to get us into the " pain " of some its characters and unsuccessfully tosses some romance into the mix .
in a sci - fi movie ?
well , i do n't know , much of it just seemed like
a bunch of nerdies talking techie jargon for about an hour and a half , only to figure out some big secret in the end , a secret which practically had me yawning with excitement .
ultimately , this is a movie that starts off with a decent premise , joins the crew in their " misadventures in space " for the main crux of its journey , and eventually settles down for one of the most anti - climactic endings this side of contact .
mind you , if you enjoyed that film 's shrug - of - the - shoulders ending , you might just enjoy this frivolous ditty as well .
of course , i do n't remember contact having such obvious and painfully distracting computer generated effects at its end of story .
ugh .
what a friggin ' mess
.
films like this generally get me wondering about the brass in hollywood again .
did n't anybody recognize the crappiness in this script ?
did n't they read the bad dialogue , the cheezy lines , the obvious derivative nature of the work ( mind you , with a director like depalma at the helm , that ai n't saying much ! ) .
of course , you ca n't really blame the brass for the inclusion of jerry o'connell in this fine crew of thespians .
'nuff said .
neither can you blame them for depalma cranking up the juice on the film 's musical score during the last fifteen minutes , presumably in order to wake the audience up ( okay , we get it brian , this scene is supposed to be powerful . . .
wow . .
. yawn . . .
my ears hurt ! ) .
so is anything salvageable in this movie ?
sure .
gary sinise does another great job , as does cheadle , the film does n't completely bore you as much as it just moves along slowly without anything really interesting happening , and yes , the " sand - twister " effect that you see in the commercial is well done .
other than that ?
i guess i could say that i admire how filmmakers have become so much more devious in their product placement strategies .
. .
oops , did i say " admire "
, i meant " am disgusted " !
all in all , this movie delivers very little in actual substance , offers two - bit dialogue
masked in a lot of sci - fi mumbo - jumbo
, pretends to be deep when really
it 's just sappy , and eventually just settles into an ending which , other than presenting us with a pathetic computer graphic as a part of the story , gives us little more to think about than how we might be able to get our money back for sitting through this rehashed dreck
.
go see the ninth gate .
. .
now there 's a great movie !
and on a personal note , i think it 's time for depalma to stop worrying so much about his proverbial 12-minute uninterrupted film sequences , and start worrying more about
how crappy his movies are getting .
Solution: N