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

Now, solve this: paul verhoeven , the dutch auteur who dragged his violent , sexually aggressive aesthetic into american film , has never been what i 'd consider a thoughtful director ( though some of his films , notably starship troopers , have been lauded as artistic achievements ) , but he is the kind of hollywood film maker who 's managed to , no matter what the budget , make his films distinctive and even sometimes smuggle stimulating themes into the lavish high concepts on which he toils .
starship troopers was essentially a b - monster movie remake of his enthralling dutch war film soldier of orange ( a great film that 's nearly impossible to find on video , yet showgirls is everywhere ) , in which he cast a troop of stunningly attractive mannequins ; the square jawed casper van dien and denise richards ( who may actually be 45 % silicone ) , in what feels like an american propaganda picture set to monotonous scenes of graphic carnage .
it 's not a completely successful film , but
as a failure
it 's certainly an interesting ( and mostly entertaining ) one .
my favorite verhoeven films were the ones he made before he hit our shores ; spetters , a dark near pornographic coming of age film set within the sub - culture of drag racing and the aforementioned soldier of orange ( have n't yet gotten around to seeing the 4th man or turkish delight ) .
i believe his best hollywood film to be robocop , a bleak super - hero satire with a robotic hero that 's as touching as schwarzenegger 's in t2 .
that movie was violent but not in the overdone cartoonish manner of more recent verhoeven pics .
its violence seemed to be there for a purpose , namely to create an atmosphere of unpredictable dread , not to simply titillate an attention deprived audience .
there 's a jaw - dropping scene within the first ten minutes of robocop wherein the lead villain toys with a cop before snuffing him .
he tortures the officer by taking glee in his victim 's every fearful tic .
it 's a startling moment of barbaric , maddening violence that effectively sets the tone for the film that could be designated as splatter punk - noir .
in hollow man kevin bacon brutally slays a dog because it just wo n't shut up , he impales a co - worker , drowns another and so on .
but why ?
his character is introduced as a smug genius , the kind who 's always impeccably dressed and races a sports car while generic rock tunes blare from his stereo for the world to hear , sort of like a scheming uber villain from dallas or melrose place , though once the character becomes invisible , this film has him pull a 180 shift into a psychotic movie monster .
the kind who just wo n't die .
hollow man 's protagonists are the completely bland but beautiful scientist linda ( elizabeth shue , acting as if she were rebecca of sunnybrook farm ) and her lover , a hunk of beef scientist played by josh brolin who 's saddled with the film 's worst lines
( " i 've lost cohesion again ! " ) .
they 're a typical aaron spelling couple , good - looking but as vacant as george
w .
bush 's republican national convention speech ( i .
e .
bush referring to clinton ; " ? ?
?
so much promise ? ? ?
but to what end ?
to what end ?
"
-- this actually got applause !
suddenly warren beatty does n't look so absurd ) .
the rest of the film 's characters are all well past thirty , though act like annoying high school party animals insulting one and other with a series of strained one - liners
; is it just me or have
labored insults become big budget hollywood 's new character developing technique ?
ahh , what a cynical time we live in ? ? ?
as the picture opens we meet cain ( kevin bacon ) , an egocentric scientist working with the crew of aforementioned irritating scientists on a top secret ( so top secret the government has only provided them with a dilapidated warehouse in which to perform their extensive experimentation 's ) project with the goal to make invisibility a possibility ( for what purpose is never hinted at ) .
they 've performed several experiments on animals and have nearly solved the quandary causing caine , in a twist worthy of the film 's 1950 's late show origins , to impulsively experiment on himself .
caine neglects to let the pentagon in on his plans and somehow gets two of his co - workers to lie for him
so the rest of the crew will think the pentagon gave the go ahead .
our mad scientist is turned invisible ( after several fx - heavy complications ) , then he inexplicably
( it 's hinted that the process of invisibility has made the animals into more savage creatures , but this is never explored , and if that was the case why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to test this out on a human ? ) begins raping , assaulting and murdering anyone he pleases , always with a lame wisecrack ready a la freddy krueger .
it grows abundantly clear with each new release that it 's verhoeven 's films that have become hollow .
like the rest , this one is cold , heartless , and full of contempt for humanity , but in addition to all that it lacks any trace of wit , insight and makes no statement other than " audiences will pay for anything these days " .
it 's an affront to anyone looking for something stimulating on an intellectual level , or even those hoping to spend a saturday night with a fun , thrill - a - minute ride .
verhoeven has instead served up an utterly routine mad slasher flick with nobody to root for and no reason to care .
the previews make hollow man look like an irresistible flick .
how can one not have a good time at a film that utilizes state of the art fx to illustrate an invisible man getting down and dirty with his bad self ?
a couple weeks ago , after seeing the trailer , a bunch of friends and i got into a long discussion of how invisible man flicks never go so far as to have the invisible individual indulging in their newfound ability .
hollow man looked like the first film to do so and whoa , in a serious manner to boot .
but oh yeah , it is directed by paul verhoven not atom egoyan or peter greenway .
verhoeven delivers the sleazy " goods " , but not in a watchable or thrillingly disturbing manner , here
it just feels icky and uncomfortable .
the director keeps his camera trained at his nubile actresses , caressing their breasts with his lens all while faux - psycho music strains in the background .
it 's plainly obvious that verhoeven is n't exploring voyeurism ( like in the classic peeping tom ) but exploiting it and not even doing that very well .
it 's funny that with all the technology $ 90 million can get you verhoven is stuck at trying to figure out how to show a woman 's naked breast manipulated by an invisible hand .
most vexing is that the invisibility aspect is used simply as gimmick in yet another slasher movie wherein characters do stupid things just so the villain can pop up for more attacks .
in fact it 's largely irrelevant that bacon is invisible since , by the end , most of his potential victims don infer - red glasses that track his body heat .
as in every mad slasher film we get the killers pov ( a scene where he spies on his neighbor while she undresses triggered unpleasant memories of slumber party massacre ) , and lots of scenes where people are unknowingly stalked .
the film only provides one moment that i found genuinely creepy .
it happens when a lab assistant ( kim dickens , who looks like she stepped out of playboy ) in the middle of a chit chat with an invisible bacon , suddenly pauses .
"
are you looking at me ? " , she queries , obviously haunted .
it 's a little moment in a big film with nothing to offer but
ground breaking special effects set to a plot that should have run its course by 1982 ( the apex of the mad slasher craze ) .
those special effects are so stunning they alone keep this from being as bad as urban legend or i still know what you did last summer .
and they 're the only reason to check out hollow man , preferably as a mid - week bargain rental .
you 've been warned .
but you probably wo n't listen , will you ?
tis ' a pity ? ? ?
Solution:
N