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: and now the high - flying hong kong style of filmmaking has made its way down to the classics , and it is n't pretty .
this time out the nod to asia goes by way of france in the excruciating bland and lukewarm production of the musketeer , a version of dumas 's the three musketeers .
by bringing in popular asian actor / stunt coordinator xing xing xiong -- whose only prior american attempts at stunt choreography have been the laughable van damme vehicle double team and the dennis rodman cinematic joke simon sez -- our musketeers are thrown into the air to do their fighting .
the end result is a tepid and dull action / adventure rip - off that stinks of indiana jones and bad asian kung fu .
the story is so simple my grandmother could have adapted the screenplay .
d'artagnan ( justin chambers ) is the vengeful son of a slain musketeer .
he travels to paris to join the royal musketeers and find the man that killed his parents .
in paris , he meets the cunning cardinal richelieu ( stephen rea ) , who is trying to overthrow the king , and richelieu 's man - in - black associate febre ( tim roth ) , the killer of his folks .
he finds the musketeers in paris disbanded and drunk , so he rounds up aramis ( nick moran ) , athos ( jan gregor kremp ) and porthos ( steven spiers ) to free the musketeer 's wrongfully imprisoned leader treville from the king 's prison .
d'artagnan and his new frisky love interest / chambermaid francesca ( mena suvari ) play footsy and coo at each other as the cardinal hunts down the musketeers until finally the queen ( catherine deneuve ) ends up being captured by the menancing febre , forcing the musketeers to regroup , with d'artagnan leading the charge , and save the day .
director peter hyams ( end of days ) obviously wanted to blend eastern and western filmmaking styles , but here it 's a disaster .
one problem is that , in reality , most eastern films have taken their lead from western ones .
jet li 's high risk is a rip - off of die hard -- not the other way around .
ironically , there is awfully little swordplay or action in the film at all -- maybe ten minutes of swashbuckling spread over five scenes .
most asian action films carry the bulk of their production with 20- to 30-minute action sequences , because they know the scenes have to carry the picture .
the musketeer instead weighs itself down with a predictable and monotonous screenplay by gene quintano ( sudden death ) , horrible acting
by stephen rea and tim roth , and the prosaic attempt of justin chambers ( the wedding planner ) to deliver his mousy self as a leader .
chambers ' d'artangnan is n't a musketeer -- he 's a mouseketeer ! and hyam 's use of candles and torches to light the grime and filth of 17th century paris are well - noted , but that 's the only standout in
an overall flat production .
A:
N