TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you are given a review of movie. Your task is to classify given movie review into two categories: 1) positive, and 2) negative based on its content.
PROBLEM: This film is overblown, predictable, pretentious, and hollow to its core. The settings are faithful to the era but self-conscious in their magnification by prolonged exposure. The lingering over artifacts stops the action and cloys almost as much as the empty dialogue. Tom Hanks seems to be sleepwalking much as Bruce Willis did in Hart's War. Tom, you can't give depth to a character simply by making your face blank! The content did not warrant the histrionic acting by Paul Newman. This is a dud wrapped in an atomic bomb casing.

SOLUTION: negative

PROBLEM: Undoubtedly the best heavy metal horror item made in the manically headbangin' 80's, which admittedly doesn't sound like much considering how utterly abysmal many other entries in this odd little fright film sub-genre like "Hard Rock Zombies," "Blood Tracks," "Terror on Tour," and the especially ungodly Jon-Mikl Thor-starring stinker "Rock'n'Roll Nightmare" tended to be. That aside, this one still deserves props for downplaying the excessive splatter and needlessly flashy special f/x razzle-dazzle in favor of focusing on adolescent high school characters who are depicted with greater acuity and plausibility than the norm for a mid-80's teen-targeted scarefest. Moreover, the film's pointed sardonic parodying of both ridiculously overblown 80's heavy metal stupidity and the nauseating self-righteousness of the uptight killjoy conservative stiffs who claimed it was the devil's music are very clever and on the money funny (famed Greed Decade heavy metal god Ozzy Osbourne has a hilarious bit as a smarmy anti-metal TV evangelist!).Marc Price (the hopelessly dweeby Skippy on "Family Ties") gives a surprisingly strong and winning performance as Eddie "Ragman" Weinbauer, a geeky, socially awkward and severely persecuted heavy metal aficionado who's constantly picked on by the stuck-up jerk preppie bullies who make up the majority of the student body at Lakeridge High School (the cruelty and mean-spiritedness of the high school kids is nailed with painfully credible accuracy). Eddie's life takes a turn for the worse when his rock star idol Sammi Curr (an impressively whacked-out portrayal by Tony Fields) perishes in a hotel fire. Hip local disc jockey Nuke (KISS front-man Gene Simmons in a cool cameo) hooks Eddie up with Sammi's final, unreleased album, which when played backwards resurrects Curr's malevolent spirit back from the dead. Sammi encourages Eddie to sic him on all the vile scumbags who make poor Eddie's life the proverbial living hell, only to have meek Eddie prove to be a most reluctant would-be accomplice. It's up to Eddie, assisted by token nice girl Leslie Graham (likeably essayed by the lovely Lisa Orgolini), to stop Sammi before things get too out of hand.Ably directed with commendable thoughtfulness and sensitivity by character actor Charles Martin Smith (who also briefly appears as a nerdy school teacher), smartly written by Michael S. Murphy, Joel Soisson, and Rhet Topham, and capably acted by a uniformly up-to-snuff cast, this surefire sleeper even comes complete with a handful of nifty "jump" moments (an outrageous attack in the back of a car by a grotesquely lecherous long-tongued mutant thingie rates as the definite highlight), a rousing "Carrie"-style high school dance slaughter sequence, a neatly utilized Halloween setting, revenge being correctly shown as a truly ugly business, and a solid central message that you shouldn't make a particular over-hyped person your hero strictly because of the calculated anti-establishment posturing said fellow does to qualify for that special status.

SOLUTION: positive

PROBLEM: It seems to me, as a recent film school graduate, that in these times of New Zealand film reaching new heights, the general public seems to think every New Zealand film made is great. Sione's Wedding proves this is dead wrong.It's completely overrated and not funny, and far from the 'hilarious' film other users of IMDb have commented. The only really funny thing I found in this film was Derek the wannabe black guy, but other than that the jokes were recycled crap that we'd all heard before.Being of half-Samoan decent, I wanted to see how the film was going to deal with Polynesian representation. It was a complete balls-up - I know it's a supposed comedy, but I didn't feel like the characters had anything new to say about Polynesian identity, even if it was in a tongue-in-cheek manner. I was most disappointed with the ending of the film and the resolution of the character's relationships - Mikaele was the player who only messed around with white women, comes to slightly turn his ways when the 'Dusky Maiden' comes to town, has an epiphany that maybe he should start looking for a stable relationship, then at the very last minute rejects it and accepts his position as a Polynesian Playboy for palagi women. I didn't understand why they did this.All in all, it was very disappointing. My whole family went to see it expecting to have a good laugh, but ended up being really bitter about paying to see it at the cinema. The jokes are lame at best, the acting, particularly of Sefa's girlfriend, APPALLING, and honestly I would've been happy if I had got my hands on one of those pirated copies of the film to save myself the $15 ticket price.I think the only good thing to come from the movie is that it's the second step (behind No. 2, of course, a far superior film to this one) in the birth of Polynesian cinema. I hope Pacific filmmakers in the future can learn from Sione's Wedding in how to NOT reflect Polynesia and have something more meaningful and sensible to say. Even if it is done in a comedic fashion.

SOLUTION:
negative