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: " something is fishy in the state of universal .
" about ten years back , with the unexpected success of mad max and the road warrior , post - apocalypse nitty - gritty survival yarns became popular at the movies .
we 've always had movies of this nature ; on the beach , the end of the world , damnation alley , the ultimate warrior , and so on .
to date , the most smoothly done were straightforward " haircuts " of the classic western plot , like the lone gunman who comes to town and protects the widow and the son against an evil organization , usually one in possession of some critical resource , like water , feed range , or a mining claim .
most of these grew out of venerable , but solid hero yarns like the virginian and shane .
( my personal favorite is a patrick swayze movie called steel dawn , which was fairly well made on a small budget . )
now we have waterworld , which again brings the traditional lone gunman to town to rescue the young widow and her daughter .
( well , she 's not a widow , and the kid is n't her daughter , but you get the idea . )
the lady is helen , played by the stunning jean tripplehorn , who is n't given a chance to be stunning , or even interesting , by the mediocre and unimaginative script .
the child enola , played by tina majorino , is living proof that a child actor need not be a bad thing to have in a movie ; she outshines her material all the way through .
in simple , the scene is earth , hundreds of years from now .
the polar ice caps have melted , and somehow produced enough water to inundate the entire planet .
the few remaining people live in boats and floating colonies , and survive by trade , theft , or piracy .
somehow an oil tanker has survived the centuries , and its inhabitants , called " smokers , " are able to keep gasoline engines running despite the dearth of replacement parts and raw materials , so the bad guys have outboard engines , and fast - moving boats , airplanes , and jet skis .
enola , found at sea as a young girl , has a mysterious map no one can read tattooed on her back .
we suspect early on that it is the way to the mythical " dryland , " the place where trees , crops , and animals grow , and
what plot there is hinges on who has enola .
the psycho ruler of the smokers , the " deacon , " is trying to get her and find his way to dryland .
played with typical self - lampooning , rug - chewing histrionics by dennis hopper , " deacon " is the only thing in the movie that 's close to amusing .
his performance is * almost * laughable , but there just is n't enough there to be funny .
the star ( and a co - producer ) is kevin costner .
he 's playing an un - named lone denizen of the sea ,
a man called the " mariner , " who turns out to be a gilled , water - breathing mutant with webbed feet .
very little is done with this .
the script ignores the ineffectuality of gills in supplying enough oxygen to support a human metabolism ; it ignores the fact that even with both ice caps completely melted , much of the earth 's surface would still be above water ; and
it ignores the blatant impossibility of the cultures and technology shown .
( canned meat does * not * last for centuries ; ammunition does * not * fire after it 's more than a few decades old ; and so on , and so on . . . )
i 'm quite fond of tina majorino 's previous work , very impressed by jean tripplehorn 's past accomplishments , and still speechless over costner 's dances with wolves .
but this movie could destroy the careers of anyone associated with it !
this movie cost one hundred and eighty - two million dollars , and there 's * nothing * in it
we have n't seen before , done better on only a few percent of the cost of this turkey .
at 125 minutes of material , this movie cost over one point four million dollars per minute to make .
the budget of this movie * could * have given us over thirty movies ; it could have paid for six years of a prime - time sf tv series with expensive fx work , or ten years of an sf tv series with good digital fx . in sum , this movie is beneath contempt .
it has nothing new to offer , it has a script that could easily have been bettered by the people who write comic books for dc , and it spent more money than the national budget of a small nation .
if you * have * to go see it , see it on a four - dollar matinee .
otherwise you 'll find yourself sneering at you every time you pass a reflective surface , for weeks .
Solution: N