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: i must say from the outset that i have never been much of a kurt russell fan .
i 've seen some of his films ( silkwood , backdraft , unlawful entry ) and while he gave adequate performances , i have never been impressed with his work .
breakdown , then , is something of a surprise .
russell gives a fine performance , as do most of the cast , one that is not upstaged by the action orchestrated in the second half of the film .
to say that he holds the film together would not be completely true , but he does it no harm .
russell plays jeff , one half of a married couple travelling with his wife amy ( kathleen quinlan ) cross country to san diego to start a new job and a new life .
while journeying through the desert their car breaks down and , left helpless and stranded , jeff waves down a passing truck driver ( j .
t .
walsh ) who offers to take them to a nearby diner to call for a tow truck .
because of a nasty incident earlier with a couple of ruffians , jeff decides to stay with the car while amy gets help .
that , it seems , is the last time jeff ( or anyone else ) sees her .
breakdown has been compared to several movies : george sluizer 's the vanishing ( the original , hopefully , not his appalling hollywood remake ) , steven spielberg 's duel and any number of hitchcock films .
as with these , breakdown does not , for the most part , stray down the conventional path of the american action - thriller .
jeff does not become a gun - toting vigilante on the hunt for his wife , but instead becomes a scared , confused everyman who has no idea what the hell is going on .
when we do find out what has happened to amy , it does come as a slight disappointment , if only because it 's too early in the film ; i for one could have done with an extra twenty minutes or so of mystery and bewilderment , but this affects the film little .
russell , as mentioned earlier , is very good in his role , and kathleen quinlan is nowhere near as annoying as she was in apollo 13 .
j .
t .
walsh , as the possibly evil truck driver , is terrific ; he is one of the best of the fine batch of character actors
hollywood does n't seem to know what to do with , but director jonathan mostow is on the right track here .
the reason
he makes such a great villain is that he actually looks like a real person , one anyone would be able to trust , which makes the plot that much more believable .
breakdown is what hollywood does n't make enough of , a great thriller with believable characters and scenes that do , indeed , have viewers on the edge of their seats .
one of the most genuinely exciting films i 've seen in a long time .
A:
P