Teacher: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? If you are still confused, see the following 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 )
Solution: N
Reason: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Now, solve this instance: when you 've run out of old tv shows to turn into movies , i guess you try video games .
why did i go to see mortal kombat : annihilation ?
the quest to seek an answer to this query may prove a better movie that the one i just saw .
this film was a bunch of fighting , yelling , special effects , and bad acting set to an oppressive techno music soundtrack .
the plot is fairly simple : a portal has opened between our world and the " outworld " , allowing evil forces commanded by shao kahn ( brian thompson ) to wreak havoc and attempt to destroy humanity .
the good guys , led by sorcerer rayden ( james remar ) and human mortal liu kang ( robin shou ) , must take the fight to outworld , where the fate of both worlds will be determined .
here 's the catch : they must reunite princess katana ( talia soto ) , who 's on the good side , with her resurrected mother queen sindel ( musetta vander ) , who 's on the bad side , for their love for each other will close the portal and ensure humanity 's safety for another generation .
how this is supposed to work , i still have no idea , but i liked katana 's line ,
" i knew love would keep us together , " since that captain and tennille song ran through my head and i got a good laugh .
there are some seriously stupid things in this movie .
take , for example , a transportation system which utilizes the " inner winds " , generated by earth 's magma flows .
you get in this metal ball which transports you through underground tunnels really fast .
how fast ?
as katana says , " you will be moving so fast , it will be as if you are not moving at all .
"
what ?
later , sonya blade ( sandra hess ) goes to find jax ( lynn " red " williams , otherwise known as " saber " on tv 's american gladiators ) at a medical research facility on the island of oahu .
how do we know this is where she went ?
there 's a sign on the facility 's perimeter fence that reads : medical research facility - oahu , hawaii .
remember , this is not a caption , but an actual sign .
i guess the location is on there for all those medical researchers who keep forgetting where they are .
there 's a lot of major flipping action , too .
the first encounter between good and evil shows kahn and rayden swiftly arching though the air toward one another .
do they land and immediately get into the fighting ?
does one of them land first and catch the other off guard ?
do they collide in mid - air ?
no , apparently they flip toward each other so they can talk without having to yell from far away .
why did they need those metal balls to travel ?
everyone could have just flipped from point a to point b .
i have to admit , the fight scenes are pretty good , although you can tell they are heavily enhanced by digital effects and fly wires , allowing the characters to surpass the limits of the human body and the laws of physics .
the movie 's thrills are derived from these scenes and most of the audience responses are on the visceral level when someone gets trashed really badly .
" ouch " was the most common expletive heard when i screened this one .
you could tell that the filmmakers knew in advance that fights , not plot , would be the main draw , since dialog is apparently in the film just to get from one fight to the next .
it seems that 's all there is in this movie .
maybe it is .
as i had mentioned ,
the acting is bad .
there 's not one solid performance in the film , although williams as jax was pretty funny .
after a fight between sonya and one of the bad guys degenerates into female mud wrestling , jax says , " you look good in mud .
no , really , you do .
" remar plays rayden with an inconsistency which makes it hard to take his character seriously , and shou is relatively emotionless as liu kang .
brian thompson , who has played good guys , bad guys , and even an alien on tv 's the x - files , but always some muscle - bound behemoth , is your average evil demi - god , but it 's more the script 's fault than his own that he does n't have anything original to say .
the one really impressive thing about this movie is that there is not one swear word in the whole hour and a half .
another thing which should be noted is that for all its punching and kicking , blood only appears in one scene .
all in all , mortal kombat : annihilation is loud , violent , shallow , and marketed toward kids .
hey , just like the video game !
Student:
N