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: 8 mm is not going to enlighten your day .
it 's a dark , grimy and disturbing portrait of underworld snuff films and filled with excessive violence .
not only do you need the stomach to make it through this bloated mess , you 'll require a lot of patience as well .
nicolas cage seems to be doing quite a bit of overacting as of late .
he wore a bizarre get - up and did a lot of yelling in the terminally awful snake eyes , and here he attempts a performance that can relate to someone completely losing their grip on reality .
cage plays private investigator tom welles , praised for his secrecy and reliability .
at home , welles is a family man , with a wife ( catherine keener ) and a small daughter to take care of .
his new assignment is a bizarre one : the wife of a formally deceased millionaire has hired him to solve a mystery regarding a film found in her husband 's safe .
the film appears to be some kind of cheap pornography involving a teenage girl and a masked man , until the girl is brutally murdered .
or so it seems .
welles , of course , begins to burrow deeper and deeper to uncover the truth .
and the more he becomes involved in this disturbing case , the more he gets in over his head .
he hires an adult book store clerk named max california ( joaquin phoenix ) to be his guide through the ugly underworld of pornography .
max knows what welles is getting himself into , and explains , ' you dance with the devil , the devil do n't change .
the devil changes you . '
these turn out to be very wise words .
8 mm has a premise that begs for a better execution .
the set - up is slick and well played , as cage uncovers the identity of the girl and travels to hollywood to locate her .
this is where everything goes awry .
although director joel schumacher succeeds in frightening us with his grotesque portrait of the ' real world ' , he forgot to inject any interest or excitement to the formula .
everything about the movie becomes dull and lifeless , repelling the viewer like the effect of bug spray to insects .
although it had enormous potential , the third act of 8 mm is a total bust , leaving intrigued audiences in a baffling state of extreme disappointment as the proceedings spiral out of control .
cage is the film 's sole flame of energy .
his performance is actually believable , but soon the director 's demands start to weigh heavily on his shoulder and he begins stumbling along in desperation .
still , you 've got to give him credit for holding this project together as long as he did , for that is no easy feat when you consider the problems at hand .
welles ' trail soon leads him to a bizarre filmmaker ( played convincingly by peter stormare ) who is notorious for the hardest - hitting snuff films in the industry .
this is where cage goes over the edge into a serial killer - like phase , in which he must take revenge on all those who murdered the innocent girl in the film .
he tracks down the masked man responsible for the killing ( chris bauer ) , and they have a bloody brawl in the local cemetery , a fight sequence that would look more at home in a schwarzenegger movie .
written by andrew kevin walker , 8 mm dissipates into a poor man 's seven , with all the violence but little of the effectiveness that made the latter such a chilling masterpiece .
furthermore , what has become of joel schumacher ?
the director has recently experienced a major drought , slumming in the depths of dismal flop after flop ( batman and robin , anyone ? ) .
this putrid thriller is certainly not going to revive his career , so perhaps schumacher should start exploring his lighter side .
A:
N