Detailed Instructions: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
See one example below:
Problem: 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
Explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Problem: devotees of robert a . heinlein , be forewarned : paul verhoeven 's starship troopers is less an adaptation of heinlein 's novel than it is a literary satire .
the author 's jingo - all - the - way militarism and his tendency to create plastic characters with plastic conflicts had me expecting a soulless , faceless parade of carnage from the film version .
and i suppose that 's exactly what verhoeven delivers , with sometimes hilarious results .
heinlein 's basic motifs are so faithfully rendered that their flaws become a source of amusement , while their strengths become the stuff of high - energy entertainment .
outlining the plot of starship troopers is a fairly silly endeavor , since it 's basically a big bug hunt . . .
aliens in broad daylight .
sometime in the future , humanity is threatened by giant , malevolent insects which have evolved into twenty - foot - tall action figures ( arachnids with super - impaling spikes , beetles that spew forth lava , dragonflies with guillotine legs ) .
among those who sign on to save the earth are a group of high school classmates from buenos aires : conflicted rich kid johnny rico ( casper van dien ) ; his math whiz girlfriend carmen ( denise richards ) ; dizzy ( dina meyer ) , who secretly carries a torch for johnny ; and carl ( neil patrick " doogie howser " harris ) , who not - so - secretly carries a torch for dizzy , and also has a talent for speaking telepathically to ferrets .
while carmen heads for flight school and carl joins military intelligence , johnny and dizzy become mobile infantry , their various battles intertwining with romantic sub - plots out of a third season episode from " beverly hills 90210 .
"
so if starship troopers is another movie where one - dimensional characters wade through trite situations on their way to killing a bunch of aliens , what makes it any better than , say , independence day , a movie where one - dimensional characters waded through trite situations on their way to killing a bunch of slightly different aliens ?
for one thing , you sense that the film - makers are aware of the pulp nonsense they have as source material .
the very absence of major stars in the cast feels thematically appropriate , not just fiscally prudent .
if starship troopers had been turned into a tv - movie , aaron spelling would have produced it .
it 's a story which requires emoting , not acting ; it 's a prime time soap opera with big guns , played for all the dopey melodrama it 's worth .
the no - name cast also plays into verhoeven 's treatment of heinlein 's most controversial conceit .
in this society , we learn , one can only be a full citizen after completing some sort of federal service , military for most .
verhoeven pays the notion plenty of lip service , then proceeds to skewer it with brilliant mock recruitment ads ( named after the world war ii - era " why we fight " series ) in which youngsters are indoctrinated into the joys of firearms , or the pleasures of stomping cockroaches .
these characters really are just " fresh meat for the grinder , " as one character puts it , which makes their lack of familiarity all the more fitting .
it 's not that starship troopers is anti - military , because it never treats the true horror of war as anything but a great big , violent video game .
in fact , the characters are living the propaganda ( particularly johnny , who receives so many field promotions he may not remember his own rank by the time the film ends ) .
verhoeven is actually having it both ways
-- he 's making fun of gung - ho boosterism even as he fires his fresh - faced recruits into battle on a gung - ho booster rocket of visual effects .
if that makes starship troopers hypocritical , at least it 's enthusiastically staged hypocrisy .
there may not be a person worth caring about in the whole film , but it moves like nobody 's business .
verhoeven stages
some thrilling action sequences , sending swarms of bugs after the anonymous grunts then having various body parts strewn about the screen like landscaping .
it is that rare special effects blockbuster which demonstrates a sense of pacing to match its budget ; i was caught up in the action enough of the time that i was n't perpetually groaning over the absence of real human beings .
i wish i could find it in myself to work up more outrage over the callous way humans are dispatched in starship troopers , but it did n't work out that way .
that would be punishing verhoeven for getting to the heart of his material .
Solution:
P