In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

you know something , christmas is not about presents .
it 's about over - hyped holiday films with lots of merchandising and product tie - ins . at least that would seem to be the message of " the grinch , " which has been advertised since last christmas and whose logo is currently plastered all over stores .
hollywood expects us to ignore this cynical greed as the movie scolds us about losing the true spirit of the season .
you know the plot : there 's this evil furry green guy called the grinch ( jim carrey ) who lives on a mountain overlooking whoville .
down below all the who s are preparing for their whobilation , but the grinch is determined to steal their christmas .
the movie is , of course , a live - action version of the beloved children 's book , which was previously adapted into a 1966 tv special by looney tunes animator chuck jones .
it 's rare that a big budget hollywood release is shamed by a thirty - year - old half - hour cartoon , but that 's the case when jones ' version is compared to ron howard 's .
the tv grinch hit all the right notes : boris karloff 's soft , deep narration ; thurl ravenscroft singing " mr . grinch " ; max the dog weighed down by the gigantic antler tied to his head ; and the grinch 's wide
, toothless grin .
by contrast , the movie hits one sour note after another .
first
, there are the numerous bad choices that jeffrey price and peter seaman made in padding out the short book into a 105-minute movie .
young wide - eyed cindy lou who ( taylor momsen ) is depressed about the misplaced priorities of her parents ( bill irwin and molly shannon ) during the holiday season .
she begins to sympathize with the grinch , who turns out to be surprisingly sympathetic .
cindy lou discovers that the grinch turned tearfully away from whoville in grammar school when he was publicly humiliated while expressing his love for the prettiest girl in the class , martha may whovier ( played as an adult by christine baranski ) .
are we expected to like the grinch , hate the who s , and want him to steal christmas ?
the grinch is n't even the villain here ; that role is filled by the corrupt mayor of whoville ( jeffrey tambor ) who was the grinch 's rival for martha 's affection .
not only are the characters needlessly complex ,
but the once - simple plot becomes so convoluted that the actual theft of christmas seems like an afterthought .
the casting choices are n't any better than the screenwriting decisions .
jim carrey seems woefully miscast .
while his face is so supple that the rubber make - up seems superfluous , carrey brings nothing else to the role .
his accent keeps changing ; i assume he was shooting for karloff ,
but he ends up sounding like a weird slurry of richard nixon , sean connery , and cartman from " south park .
" not knowing what else to do during his many scenes alone in the grinch 's home , carrey falls back on his stand - up comedy and clowns around ace ventura - style .
needless to say , his wise - cracking antics do n't quite fit the character of the grinch , who is an embittered loner filled with hate .
little taylor momsen brings little to role of cindy lou except big eyes and a cute smile .
she would have been fine if cindy lou was limited to her original purpose in the seuss story ( finding " santa " in her living room stealing the tree ) .
however , the expanded script makes cindy as important as the grinch , and momsen is not up to the challenge .
bottom line : when you 're stealing christmas ( movies ) , leave this one behind .
N

it seemed like the perfect concept .
what better for the farrelly brothers , famous for writing and directing comedies with offensive subject matter , than to make a movie about a guy with a split personality ?
it 's exactly the sort of thing the brothers relish : poking fun at something serious ( in this case mental illness ) , throwing all care to the wind to get a laugh .
jim carrey 's signed on too ?
even better .
the national alliance for the mentally ill even helped out by levying complaints against the brothers ' new film before its opening , claiming it was misrepresenting the condition of split personality , labeling it incorrectly as " schizophrenia , " and so forth .
such a protest seemed like just the sort of thing that would , of course , only add more fuel to the farrelly brothers ' fire , proving that some people just could n't take a joke , and that the farrellys would be helping the more enlightened viewers to yet another dose of their brilliantly subversive comedy .
yes , it all seemed perfect , but one thing went wrong : their movie is n't funny .
it 's not for lack of trying .
the farrellys utilize in " me , myself & irene " their most high - concept premise ever : carrey plays charlie baileygaites , a man who after being dumped by his wife for a midget limo driver , decides to bury all his aggressive feelings deep down inside and never release them .
this , of course , means all his neighbors exploit his entirely too - forgiving nature , making his job as a rhode island state trooper increasingly difficult .
soon enough , charlie 's repressed aggression manifests itself into a second , independent personality named hank , a deep - voiced , boorish ogre unafraid of taking the assertive actions his predecessor had been unable to muster .
this guy is n't above crashing a car through the wall of the barber shop in which he 's been insulted , or holding a little girl 's head underwater because she refused to stop jump - roping in the street .
then things start getting lost in the most complicated plot the farrellys have ever attempted , and the film runs off its tracks .
some have suggested that this is n't a problem , because the farrelly brothers ' brand of humor does n't require plot to work .
they 're wrong , of course : plot was greatly instrumental in building up the kind of rollicking comic energy that infused the farrellys ' last effort , 1996 's " there 's something about mary .
"
( 1999 's " outside providence " was technically an earlier project . )
the brothers ' earlier film was n't funny merely because it contained outrageous gags ( despite what some newsmagazine articles would have you believe ) , but rather because its most outrageous gags were entirely unexpected .
in " mary , " the farrellys managed several times to pull off a neat sleight - of - hand trick : they 'd have you thinking the story was going one way , then reveal its real direction in delightfully surprising fashion .
" me , myself & irene , " by contrast , seems to have been made by folks who looked at " mary " and saw only the surface grossness , missing all of the subtle machinations that really made it work . having been produced by the same guys who made " mary , " " irene " seems like an even bigger disappointment .
the brothers pile on the offensive humor , taking shots at race , midgets , albinos , mental illness , and all manner of bathroom jokes .
but they have n't come up with a way to make any of it fresh most of " me , myself & irene " comes off as rote , by - the - numbers , adolescent comedy .
the plot , with carrey forced to drive alleged fugitive irene p . waters ( renee zellweger ) , who 's in more trouble than anyone knows , back to new york , has an ending that 's entirely predictable from the get - go .
( think charlie and irene will fall in love ?
yeah , me too . )
the farrellys then introduce scores of different characters , and none of them ever manage to do anything you have n't already expected them to do , no matter how outrageous their actions might be .
compared to the curveballs the farrellys are used to throwing , this stuff is almost entirely soft - tossed , presenting an obvious problem : when gross - out humor loses its shock value ,
it 's no longer funny , merely gross .
the jokes that do work are milked over and over until their effectiveness runs dry .
take , for example , the subplot involving charlie 's three black sons ( anthony anderson , mongo brownlee , jerod mixon ) .
the incongruity of it all is funny for a while , with three burly black men discussing higher math in ghetto language and white - bread carrey mouthing said language with an entirely too - pleasant smile on his face .
but by the end of the film , they 're still doing the same schitck it has n't been elevated to another , funnier level , and it has n't been dropped either .
that 's too bad , because it ceases to be amusing about halfway through .
" me , myself & irene " reeks of wasted opportunities .
there ought to be more focus on how other people react to charlie 's new personality , and on how charlie deals with the consequences of hank 's actions .
this does n't really happen nearly every supporting character learns about charlie 's condition early on , so they do n't have any opportunity to be surprised by it .
the film throws what looks like a patented farrelly curve in a scene towards the midway point ( involving an albino companion charlie and irene pick up called , appropriately , " whitey " ) , but the script does n't go anywhere with it , instead leaving the thread twisting in the wind before awkwardly tying it up during the climax .
jim carrey is a gifted comedian , both physically and vocally , but
he 's left with nothing much to do here
except contort himself in a manner similar to steve martin in " all of me .
"
it 's a great showcase of flexibility and split - second role - shifting , but none of it is terribly funny .
carrey does n't pull any stunts we do n't expect him to pull , and the farrellys ' script does n't give him anything else to pull : the situations in which he must perform the role - shifting are n't set up in any meaningful way .
perhaps carrey can take solace in the fact that his supporting actors fare no better .
zellweger 's irene is not a strong female lead mary in " mary " may have been part adolescent fantasy , but she was also intelligent and strong - willed .
irene is nothing in particular , as the film never makes clear whether she 's ditzy , clever , or neither . as such ,
she gives us nothing to latch onto as the only " sane " person in the film .
chris cooper is stuck playing exactly one note as a corrupt fbi agent , and his character is entirely too straight - laced for a movie like this .
he , like the others , does absolutely nothing unexpected .
after viewing the shapeless mess that " me , myself & irene " eventually dissolved into , i was stuck wondering whether or not the farrellys had outsmarted themselves .
maybe their kind of comedy can only work for so long until audiences get wise to it and stop being shocked .
but i do n't believe it -- good filmmakers find ways of surprising their audiences even after people have grown attuned to their style .
if the farrellys are indeed good , smart filmmakers ( and i still think they are ) , they 'll rebound just fine .
even after that happens , though , i 'll still consider " me , myself & irene " to be a high - caliber misfire .
N

krippendorf 's tribe is a formula comedy .
done poorly , formulaic comedies might seem to signify the downfall of american cinema .
however , every now and then , one emerges , like krippendorf 's tribe , that actually works .
professor james krippendorf ( richard dreyfuss ) , the renowned anthropologist , is in trouble .
his university gave him a hefty grant to discover a lost tribe in new guinea .
however , he found .
. .
nothing .
his wife has recently died , and he has spent the remainder of the grant money in raising his three kids : shelly ( natasha lyonne ) , mickey ( gregory smith ) and edmund ( carl michael lidner ) .
tonight , he is expected to lecture on his newfound tribe .
rather than break the news ( and face the consequences of misusing his funds ) , he invents a tribe : the shelmikedmu ( named after his kids ) .
however , one lie begets another as he is not only required to deliver filmed proof of the shelmikedmu , but his research becomes a popular phenomenon .
soon , professor krippendorf is caught up in an elaborate ruse in which he films mockumentary footage starring his children as the shelmikedmu tribal members .
his efforts are hampered by the boasts of an over - eager colleague , veronica micelli ( jenna elfman ) , and the intense scrutiny of a rival anthropologist , ruth allen ( lily tomlin ) .
krippendorf 's tribe does seem to require a little suspension of disbelief .
no one seems to question the way his field documentaries seem to be shot with multiple cameras , or that his newly discovered tribesmen have startlingly blue eyes .
luckily , as the film builds momentum , that suspension of disbelief is easy to come by .
though there 's some mild humor in the krippendorf family trying to pass themselves off as a lost tribe , the real humor of the film is in how james gets trapped in his ever increasing snowball of lies .
the double meanings to many of the shelmikedmu appearances are enjoyable , and the comic timing required for some of the film 's latter scenes is superb .
richard dreyfuss is terrific
as the hapless professor who soon loses control of his own imaginary tribe .
jenna elfman 's position as a romantic lead seems a bit forced at times , but she plays the part with extreme affability .
even the kids , who in films like this tend to be a bit on the precocious side , are endearing and humorous .
yes , the film does veer occasionally into some rather lowbrow humor , but it has the best excuse of all :
it 's funny .
it may not go down as an all - time classic , but it certainly delivers what you expect from a comedy : plenty of laughs .
P