An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: Vonnegut's words are best experienced on paper. The tales he weaves are gossemar, silken strands of words and expressions that are not easily translated into a world of Marilyn Manson or Jerry Bruckheimer explosions. His words have been treated well once before, in the remarkable Slaughterhouse-5.

Mother night is probably one of the three novels Vonnegut has written I could take to a desert island, along with Slaughterhouse-5 and Bluebeard.

The film version deserves a 10, but the books are so permanently part of my interior landscape that I just can't do it...some of the scenes left out of the film are part of my memory...
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: There's a good movie lurking here, but this isn't it. The basic idea is good: to explore the moral issues that would face a group of young survivors of the apocalypse. But the logic is so muddled that it's impossible to get involved.

For example, our four heroes are (understandably) paranoid about catching the mysterious airborne contagion that's wiped out virtually all of mankind. Yet they wear surgical masks some times, not others. Some times they're fanatical about wiping down with bleach any area touched by an infected person. Other times, they seem completely unconcerned.

Worse, after apparently surviving some weeks or months in this new kill-or-be-killed world, these people constantly behave like total newbs. They don't bother accumulating proper equipment, or food. They're forever running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere. They don't take elementary precautions when meeting strangers. And after wading through the rotting corpses of the entire human race, they're as squeamish as sheltered debutantes. You have to constantly wonder how they could have survived this long... and even if they did, why anyone would want to make a movie about them.

So when these dweebs stop to agonize over the moral dimensions of their actions, it's impossible to take their soul-searching seriously. Their actions would first have to make some kind of minimal sense.

On top of all this, we must contend with the dubious acting abilities of Chris Pine. His portrayal of an arrogant young James T Kirk might have seemed shrewd, when viewed in isolation. But in Carriers he plays on exactly that same note: arrogant and boneheaded. It's impossible not to suspect that this constitutes his entire dramatic range.

On the positive side, the film *looks* excellent. It's got an over-sharp, saturated look that really suits the southwestern US locale. But that can't save the truly feeble writing nor the paper-thin (and annoying) characters. Even if you're a fan of the end-of-the-world genre, you should save yourself the agony of watching Carriers.
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: While exploring some caves with his wife, a doctor is bitten by a bat which causes some alarming side effects...

Occasionally creepy atmosphere and some decent (though under used) makeup effects don't save this B horror flick from being a sub-par tale of man-becomes-creature. The Bat People aka It Lives By Night suffers from its senseless story that's awkwardly plotted and lackluster in pacing. The plot never seems to go anywhere much and the movie never offers an explanation for what happens, or even a satisfying conclusion for it all. The cast is fairly mediocre in their performances.

Still I give the film some points for its haunting theme song and nice filming locations. The makeup work of the late Stan Winston is pretty good too, but it doesn't get much of a showcase here. A missed opportunity for sure.

Definitely one of the lesser man-creature flicks out there.

* 1/2 out of ****
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive positive
=++++=
Answer: The first of the official Ghibli films, Laputa is most similar to its predecessor Nausicaa, but whereas Nausicaa was a SF epic, this is more of an action comedy-adventure with a fairly weak SF premise.

For the first half hour of the movie I thought I was going to love it. Once again you find yourself in awe of Miyazaki's attention to detail, and his ability to conjure up an imaginary world in meticulous, beautiful perfection. The animation, though still not in the league of the later Ghibli films, is a little better than in Nausicaa.

I mentioned in my review of Nausicaa that one character is drawn in a more 'Lupinesque' anime style. Here there are a whole bunch of them: the pirates. They provide the comic element in the film, though quite why it needs a comic element I'm not sure. There was nothing funny about Nausicaa, and I think it was better off for it. Still. having said that, Dola, the pirate leader, is easily the most memorable character in the film (even if she's basically a female Long John Silver. Don't be surprised if you're reminded of 'Treasure Planet' at times) and is well voiced by Cloris Leachman in the American dub.

The English voice cast acquit themselves well for the most part, actually. However something started going pear-shaped for me about this movie by about the halfway mark. I think the best way that I could describe it is that the characters get swallowed up by the vast scope of the story. I'll come back to that later.

There is so much to admire about Laputa, and so many people obviously love it, that I almost feel mean for only giving it 8 out of 10, but for me the operative word here is 'admire'. It was more impressive than personally affecting, and at over two hours it just started to drag.

The crucial thing for me was this: I really found that I didn't care much about any of the characters. Disney would have taken the care to develop the characters, make you really fall for them, rather than leave them as relatively two-dimensional pieces to be moved around while you gawked at the amazing vistas in the movie. Even that would have been tolerable if there was some hard SF in the story to make up for it, but it was basically a lot of gobledegook about Princesses and magic crystals. That's where Laputa falls down as far as I'm concerned, and that's what holds it back from being a potential 10 out of 10 movie. Having said that, it must be admitted that Miyazaki was leagues ahead of Disney in general in 1986, when you consider that their movie of the same year was the pretty dire 'Great Mouse Detective'.

Laputa is a good film in some ways an amazing film, and you should definitely see it, but I do feel it's over-rated. I definitely prefer the earlier 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind'.

BTW, if you manage to watch them in chronological order, watch for the fox-squirrel from Nausicaa popping up briefly in Laputa.
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A:
In the beginning and throughout the movie, it was great. It was suspenseful and thrilling. Yet in the end it gave no answer to what had happened. They mysteriously turned into zombies by a raven or crow? It did not answer the questions that we all had and therefore, was not as good a movie as I thought that it was going to be.