In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

" virus " is a monster movie without a monster .
any movie with a hurdle that large to overcome had better be pretty damn good
otherwise .
sadly , " virus " does not deliver , on any level .
the movie opens with the russian space station mir about to transmit something ( we never find out what ) to a big boat with lots of satellites on it .
sudddenly , a wave of colorful lightning comes flying through space , and winds up destroying mir and using it to transmit itself to the aforementioned big boat .
cut to seven days later , we meet donald sutherland and his band of seafaring vultures .
see , they spend all their time sailing around looking for dead - in - the - water ships to rescue , and then collect the reward money .
at least , i * think
* that 's what they do .
along with many other things in the film , their reason for being out in the middle of the ocean is n't really explained .
so , they stumble upon this big boat with lots of satellites on it , and decide to haul it back to russian waters .
the only problem is , the crew starts disappearing one - by - one and turning into borg .
yes , borg .
complete with the red laser beam in place of an eye .
apparently , this alien lifeform can only survive if inside something electrical .
so , it creates make - shift machines and uses humans for " spare parts " .
blah , blah , blah .
i could go on forever describing the ludicrous so - called plot , but i wo n't .
suffice it to say the most original thing about this movie is having donald sutherland play an irish man ( !
) . everything else in this movie has been taken from other ( better ) movies .
for example , many of the machines resemble those found in the little - seen japanese movie , " tetsuo - the iron man " .
and the plot is right out of " aliens " .
the funny thing is , i was actually expecting to enjoy this movie .
i have a soft spot for cheesy monster movies , like last years under - appreciated " deep rising " .
but " virus " , as i mentioned earlier , does n't even have a monster .
it just has a big pile of circuits and wires and expects the audience to fear this ridiculous looking contraption .
" virus " is the type of movie that really makes you wonder what the screenwriter was thinking about when he wrote it .
besides the lame " monster " , it 's chock full of dialogue that no real person would ever say , and situations that no real person would ever allow themselves to get into .
for example , there is a scene late in the movie in which one of the characters actually attempts to * negotiate * with the alien !
now , i do n't know about you , but if i came upon a lifeform that viewed mankind as a virus to be eliminated , i doubt that i would attempt to reason with it .
that makes about as much sense as a baby squirrel calmly asking a fierce predator to spare his life .
finally , " virus " is n't scary .
the least the filmmakers could have done was to make the movie just a little scary .
as it is , it 's about as frightening as a box of cookies .
skip " virus " .
if it 's a cool monster movie you want , rent the far superior ( and the granddaddy of this genre ) " aliens " .
N

at the outset of swordfish , john travolta 's gabriel shear is pontificating about the status of american cinema today .
basically , he says , it boils down to a lack of imagination among the majority of writers .
how ironic , as travolta seems to be describing his latest venture .
swordfish is loud , violent and amoral .
it has the audacity to justify murder and mayhem in the name of sustaining our way of life .
and how does travolta 's gabriel plan to do this ?
by robbing billions from his own government and using the funds to out - terrorize terrorists .
swordfish is a very cynical movie .
it relies on an audience 's perception of our leaders as ineffectual and duplicitous and on terrorists as non - human , faceless entities not worthy of compassion or consideration .
the movie 's plot is preposterous with enough illogical leaps that if the film ever slowed down , you 'd actually see how ridiculous it all is
.
this is a live - action road runner cartoon , moving so quickly that it 's over before you can catch your breath to ask any reasonable questions .
the storyline revolves around super hacker stanley jobson ( hugh jackman ) , recruited by gabriel to crack the government 's computer codes so gabriel can gather billions for his anti - terrorist campaign .
talk about whacked - out patriotism .
my objections to swordfish are many .
the body count is high , but that is expected in a movie of this sort .
it 's becoming a bore watching anonymous soldiers , police officers and government agents blown to bits .
another example is the family dynamics between stanley , his 10-year - old daughter and his ex - wife .
stanley , though having served time in prison for hacking , is shown as a loving and caring father , forbidden by his ex to see his little girl .
audience animosity is immediately created for his former spouse by showing her as a drinker and smoker who also sometimes stars in her new husband 's adult films .
thus when she is found murdered late in the movie , neither stanley nor his daughter are allowed any time to grieve .
in fact , subconsciously , many in the audience are probably glad she was killed .
then there is the sequence involving one of gabriel 's henchman holding a gun to the head of stanley 's daughter to coerce the hacker to download the key computer program for gabriel .
children as pawns have become a most unwelcome clich ?
in recent films .
there is enough violence in the real world involving children without having to make them on - screen victims as well .
yea
, it 's only make believe , but that does n't mean you have to tolerate it
.
travolta is cool , deadly charming and flamboyant as the near - crazy gabriel .
his character is reminiscent of his villainous characterizations in broken arrow and face / off .
jackman looks dour through most of the proceedings .
his only moment of any depth comes when he finally is able to create the worm to get inside the government database .
his sense of joy and accomplishment is one any computer whiz can appreciate .
halle berry is decorative and lovely as gabriel 's assistant , while don cheadle is given little to do as the head fbi agent hunting gabriel .
swordfish plays like a comic book with a larger - than - life character in gabriel .
viewers align themselves with him despite their uncertainty if he is hero or villain .
and maybe that is the movie 's underlying flaw : there is no real hero to speak of , only those doing their upmost to survive .
and that is not enough .
this is one swordfish that should have been thrown back in the water .
N

capsule : godawful " comedy
" that 's amazingly shabby and cut - rate , and rather bereft of laughs
.
i was having a bad week in my life when i saw austin powers :
international man of mystery .
i desperately needed something to cheer me up , or at least distract me so i could get a clear head .
get some perspective .
even dumb movies can do that for me , sometimes .
i tried hard not to let my dejection affect my judgment , but i am certain now that austin powers would have also sucked rocks through bamboo shoots on the day i won the lottery .
michael myers has taken a character that would barely have supported a five - minute sketch on saturday night live and stretched it to the length of a feature film , padding it out with toilet jokes and the sort of props - strategically - positioned - between - naked - actors - and - camera gags that benny hill got tired of fifteen years ago .
the plot , what little there is of it : back in the swinging mod hep sixties ( i do n't think i 'm doing a disservice to the movie 's attempted early look and feel by describing it that way ) , sexy british secret agent austin powers tangled with his nemesis dr .
evil .
evil launched himself into orbit and cryogenically forze himself to return decades later , when powers was out of the picture .
powers also had himself frozen , and he wakes up to find the nineties a very hard time to deal with .
the basic gag , that of powers ' total inability to cope with the nineties , is not so much exhausted during the course of the movie as never even really dealt with .
the bulk of the movie is taken up with dumb jokes of several basic rubrics : james bond gags ( of which this movie has no end , right down to the silly character names ) , inept slapstick , toilet humor , and strategically placed props . . .
the movie 's amazingly bereft of ideas , come to think of it , with a couple of bright exceptions .
one is dr .
evil 's son -- there is a sidesplitting scene where father and son go to an encounter group , chaired by carrie fisher -- and the other is a throwaway gag where austin mimics various forms of transportation from behind a couch ( it 's a visual gag -- hard to describe , and hard to recommend seeing the movie for ) .
a lot of sixties kitsch has been resurrected and thrown on the screen for this movie , but it 's desperate rather than clever .
instead of skewering the whole thing , it 's a rather bloodless and unfunny tribute
.
myers himself is also desperate : he 's given an idea to play , not a character .
plus , the attempts to make the character work by giving him a relationship with another sexy ( albeit " nineties " ) agent are a waste of time .
i wanted to have the movie end with him trying yet again to get it on with her , only to have her deck him one .
with a couple of exceptions , the movie misses all of its own best moments .
the movie even looks cheesy , and not in a good way : i kept wondering if it had been transferred down from hi - def video or something , so grainy was the film stock in a good many scenes .
the whole thing has the air of being done on the cheap .
my definition of comedy is simply : did it make me laugh ?
the few times that i laughed in austin powers were completely offset by the time i spent cringing and wanting out .
the most damning thing i could say about the movie is that wayne and garth would most likely have shoved it into mike tyson 's shorts and sent it sailing .

N

