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: some movies i should just skip .
my daughter and i had a really vile time at my favorite martian a few weeks back , and here comes another disney effects - filled live - action flick based on an old tv program .
true , the probgram is only 15 years old this time , and it 's a cartoon .
but it 's a cartoon i liked , and i was understandably reluctant to see what disney had done to it on the big screen .
but my daughter really wanted to go , and how bad could it be ?
turns out i was right , mostly .
inspector gadget , oddly enough , follows almost exactly the same format as my favorite martian , down to the jive - talking side - kick .
at first i thought it was done by the same people , but imdb informs me that ig was directed by david kellogg and written by dana olsen and kerry ehrin , where mfm was directed by donald petrie and written by sherri stoner and deanna oliver .
this odd similarity between the two movies may best be explained by the studio that produced it , where " formula " is n't just business
, it 's a way of life .
the producers who obviously micromanaged the two projects should get prominant screen credits .
in some parts you can just hear them saying " more zany !
i want more zany here -- and -- here .
"
" let 's have a really painful sexual reference for no reason right here -- make it really painful .
i want the audience squirming in their seats .
"
" ok , that 's fine , but i want you to add bug guts .
"
" what does this scene do ?
character depth ?
but where 's the zaniness ?
i do n't see zany here .
if you ca n't make it zany , cut it !
"
the latter is the only explanation i can come up with for the absence of the thoroughly charming michelle trachtenberg for most of the movie .
michelle ( who plays penny , gadget 's niece ) shines in every scene she 's in , but unfortunately
she only gets about nine minutes of screen time .
my guess is that the rest is on the cutting room floor .
dabney coleman 's comedic talents are utterly wasted as chief quimby .
i kept expecting him to say or do something really funny and somehow save the film , but instead , he does the best he can with some really poor lines in a few unexceptional scenes .
he is thoroughly upstaged by cheri oteri as the " gidget bitch from hell " town mayor .
oteri 's
overly enthusiastic and continually self - congratulatory speech patterns and mannerisms were so much like portland , oregon 's own manic mayor vera katz that i had to wonder if the studio was n't poking fun at our fair town .
or , maybe all career politicians are like that .
i must say , matthew broderick does not stroll through inspector gadget as he did godzilla .
he appears to have some fun with the film , especially as the evil gadget .
rupert everett is entertaining as the maniacle claw .
joely fisher does fine as the zany scientist and even better as the zany carbon copy of herself .
her performance is one of the few things worth watching in the film .
d .
l . hughley plays the shuckin'-and - jivin ' vehicular side - kick , in a role that firmly sets emancipation back 20 years .
the dialog is . . .
let 's face it ,
it 's pretty bad .
the tag - line after a major set - piece battle is a faux pas that makes no sense in context .
a lot of the lines ( especially hughley 's ) appear to be made up as they go along , by people with little gift for ad - lib .
about three - quarters of the film is a somewhat unnecessary origin story for both gadget and claw .
gadget then spends the latter third of the movie trying to locate claw and having various altercations ( not really " battles " ) with the evil gadget .
penny does about a minute and a half of the detective work her character did every week in the cartoon .
let me rage here just for a minute .
michelle trachtenberg was an excellent choice for the penny character .
she 's utterly charming , and has excellent experience ( harriet the spy ) for the part of the pint - size detective .
why she is so underutilized
in this film is a real mystery .
the film loses a star for casting brilliance coupled with scripting ( or editing )
stupidity .
inspector gadget is missing the long , long stretches of potty humor that ( among other things ) made my favorite martian so unbearable , but it 's a very short movie , so perhaps something was cut at the last moment .
probably the best scenes in the film occur during the end credits .
the " evil sidekick support group " is especially worth seeing , and has an amazing number of cameo appearances for the few seconds it 's onscreen .
all in all , another bad live action film from the premere studio for bad live action films .
i wonder if disney uses the revenues for it 's generally money - making cartoons to produce these losers
.
but if true , why ?
if they 're trying for another mary poppins , they need to find a team that can produce one , and then give them a chance to do it .
A:
N