Empire's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 6,849 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.9 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Oppenheimer
Lowest review score: 20 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Score distribution:
6849 movie reviews
    • 13 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Unfortunately this isn't even half as fun as the shortest bumper-car ride, with the cast lost in a sea of unfunny situations and badly executed antique jokes on loan from The Munsters all obviously puzzled about why they are actually there.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Interesting father-and-son dynamic, though not particularly memorable in the long-term.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Dump thriller which trivialises the subject matter.
  1. A totally unneeded sequel which does nothing whatsoever for the legacy of the original tale.
  2. It's in the animal capers that Disney's skill really comes into play, as stunning wildlife photography combines with an Incredible Journey-type treat-animals-as-furry-people attitude to the narrative, transforming an average adventure film into a humorous, dangerous and immensely watchable movie.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Better than Ghost but not as good as When Harry Met Sally, here's a dating movie where the other woman really should have got her man.
  3. While not wishing to be facetious about women and children held against their will in any country, this tearjerker is strictly TV movie for a wet Wednesday stuff.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This is a hoot, the kind of hammy horror romp you wouldn't kick out of the video on a wet Wednesday night.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    A dreadful disappointment.
  4. As a one-off this could have inoffensively scraped by on thin charm alone. But don't forget kids, it gave rise to such monstrosities as Last Action Hero, Junior and Jingle all the Way…
  5. Like Driving Miss Daisy this deals with a white employer and a black servant in the times of revolution, not only that but in both films it's a jaded view with the servant being loyal and not a 'friend'. Besides that small problem, it's a moving film with a steady performance from Spacek, but by the end it has definitely become Goldberg's film.
  6. A spectacular misfire from a director who should have known better.
  7. Despite some smart, brittle dialogue and the classy cast, this seldom rises above the routine and is basically a bittired and terribly 60's.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Plucks at the heart-strings in a far too push-button way.
  8. All three leads are genuinely appealing here, with Ryder once again acting her bobby sox off and giving yet further reminder of just how sorely she was missed in Godfather III.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An ambitious and quite beautifully conceived fairy tale for the 90s.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The simmering implication of incestuous emotions between Lili and Roy, leading to the shocking denouement, is badly underdeveloped and mishandled, leaving a lingering sense of anti-climax.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    An epic film brimming over with life, romance, humour, comedy and the sheer panache of Depardieu's Cyrano.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    There are a few holes in the plot, mainly towards the end, but from start to harrowing finish, it is blissfully apparent that Rob Reiner can indeed turn his hand to virtually anything.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    It's hard to imagine that even a documentary on the apparently harmonious marriage of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward -a union established in 1958 and still going strong - could be duller than this stodgy addition to the Merchant-Ivory menu of good taste.
  9. More story-led than the original with a high enough body count to make it a satisfying action movie.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This sequel is still considerably funnier than the original, with the male leads excelling in their roles.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bemused out of the ring and brutal in it, Rocky has always been an uncomfortable hero, and it says something for Stallone's skill as a writer that he's been able to keep him going this long. Given the restrictions of the formula, Rocky V is a fitting — even graceful — way to finally hang up the gloves.
  10. So it may not be Citizen Kane, but it is a hilarious comedy (although not a very believable one — there can be no eight-year-olds this ingenious) that kids will love and adults won’t mind sitting through either.
  11. A worthy diversion for the very young, but against their more venerable stablemates - notably DuckTales - The Rescuers's identification/memorableness factor remains second division.
  12. Of sentiment there is too much and the final sequence when the white men inevitably rear their heads and raise their rifles so fraught with tears and peril as to be exhaustingly melodramatic.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unable to strike enough fear in an audience, this brave foray nevertheless takes a hatchet to the notion that it had gone soft.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    A waste of space.
  13. Despite all the confusion, it's a simple case of the script being too ambitious. It may emulate a man experiencing flashbacks, but it doesn't help the audience.
  14. Beautifully presented but over-long and best appreciated if you already have an idea of van Gogh's life and work.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    All told, a fairly shameful enterprise, displaying a breathtaking paucity of imagination.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beautifully observed stuff, classy performances, and an occasionally exquisitely funny movie.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This film falls down in it's attempts to do everything at once, so that a potentially horrific scenario is often played out to comic effect. It doesn't quite work and the film manages to undermine itself.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sentimentality creeps in now and again, but Levinson's steady grasp of his city's unique atmosphere makes these moments genuinely moving rather than hokey.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An intriguing and absorbing movie, reeking of class and quite packed with powerhouse performances.
  15. Director Dennis Hopper continues the fumbling manner of "Colors" and the forthcoming-but-disowned "Catchfire," drawing out what ought to be a 72 minute B-picture into two hours and ten minutes of sweaty silliness with three pretty stars who can't quite bring themselves to be camp enough for the material.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Borderline dreadful waste of potential.
  16. A sentimental drama that's 'good in the air' and something of a throwback to war films of old.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A very clever, stylish story of friendship, loyalty and betrayal.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Marked For Death offers a very proficient range of bang-and-break antics ending with a neat twist.
  17. An old-fashioned literary biopic with all cliches intact and some pseudo-steamy grapplings to keep interest, if you must, up.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Despite the usually dependable cast, this is a slow and ever-so-slightly dull affair. Try Bogart's 1955 original instead.
  18. Campion's grasp of her material is intellectually and emotionally assured, while Fox's extraordinary performance demonstrates an honesty, courage and power that's rarely attempted, let alone achieved.
  19. Those who found, say, Internal Affairs, a "stylish" affair will be able to say the same of this, only it's more so. The more squeamish will prefer to take Manhattan Woody Allen style.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Schlesinger, using slick camera angles and direction that bear a striking similarity to those of the old master himself, manages to pile on that tension in spades.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    An amazing exercise in character development which successfully shows the character as they were in the first film and as they are now. It is flawed in the basics, but often delightful in detail.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    What this sometimes witty time-filler never quite manages is a genuine sense of confined menace. For that, you'll have to get aboard the original when it next plays on TV.
  20. Utterly mindless, but on its own snap, bang, and wallop terms, it works well enough.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Walking a fine line between being a masterpiece and a dogs dinner, this movie strays into the latter, though giving some historical illumination to the movie-making process as it was in the 1950s. A white elephant.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Re-prehensible, re-heated, and certainly not re-commended.
  21. A little slow and vastly outdated now, but nonetheless very watchable.
  22. Fine performances in this highly entertaining biopic confirm Mike Nichol's status as the director Hollywood wants to work with.
  23. John Woo's trademark style reached its zenith in The Killer, with its ying-yang relationship between a good-hearted hit man and an anti-authority cop. But underneath the Miami Vice tailoring, it's as much a doomed romance as a shoot-'em-up.
  24. Certainly not Raimi at his best, but some knowing genre nods and an array of great effects make up much of the deficit.
  25. As the drama circles their inaction, this trio of excellent performances fills the screen with a form of spiritual exhaustion, and the film slumps into noir’s typically happy-clappy comeuppance of failure, betrayal and ruin. But the mood has caught on, and the film, stamped with a stunning visual emptiness, haunts the memory for long after its sour close.
  26. Deliciously cruel to children, Roeg remains true to Dahl's underlying sense of real horror.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Surprising success with what could be a formulaic disgruntled teen movie. Fast paced with a satisfyingly unhappy ending.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    It's plus points are few and far between - fantastic music, well worth buying the soundtrack for, and the occasional Moranis and Martin magic we would expect throughout - but such rare glimpses merely underline the sheer sogginess of the rest of the movie.
  27. The major fault in Exorcist III is the house-of-cards plot that is constantly collapsing.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Misfit cameos, apparently random asides and an almost continuous onslaught of unsettling sex and violence mean there’s no mistaking David Lynch’s hand behind the camera -- but there’s enough of a narrative to make this work as a straightforward road movie, too.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    While Gibson and Downey work well together, Air America does tend to be slightly overcooked in the cheap laugh department at the expense of a meandering storyline.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Two Jakes is well-acted and looks fabulous, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond paints it eerily bright and shiny.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s tight, suspenseful, funny and packed with great music.
  28. An affectionate and entertaining tribute to the Western - but, Estevez aside, Young Guns II doesn't exactly add much to the old genre.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    A dark domestic comedy that continuously shirks the courage of its convictions.
  29. A well-rigged whodunit based on the bestseller by Scott Turrow, that pretends to investigate the various political manipulations that haunt your average district attorney’s office but is in truth about the wages of sin.
  30. It’s drifty, dreamy quality that, contrary to the film’s indie-cool ingredients, makes it eminently watchable and modern.
  31. Marvelous supporting performances from scene-stealing Kirby, Maximilian Schell, Paul Benedict as the nutty professor and Frank Whaley as Broderick's quiff-coiffed room mate pile on the pleasures, but the sight of Marlon Brando on ice skates is surely the absolute treat in a film well worth rooting for.
  32. A very pompous version of the kind of nonsense Chuck Norris has been doing in far less embarrassing fashion for so many years.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An exciting and thoroughly enjoyable, experience.
  33. It’s soppy and sentimental, and it’s no longer possible to take the famous pottery sequence seriously, but some neat special effects and a healthy dose of humour prevent it from becoming mawkish.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Enjoyable nonsense with a superb enemble cast. Pure entertainment.
  34. Though Clay is unbearably watchable, the mis-cast director means this comedy would be better as an action flick - it isn't funny but the violence is well executed.
  35. It's not nearly exciting enough and at an hour and twenty minutes is overlong for animation fans, yet by virtue of the fact it's a cartoon, it presents itself as too childish for older live action devotees.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    More violent, more explosive and even bigger than the original - this ticks all the sequel boxes. But as long as Willis is in his vest and playing McClane, it's hard to care about its shortcomings.
  36. Every motion, from the clamour of the racetrack to the sparring of teacher and pupil, has been worked out for audience satisfaction and grants none. This is not a real film, it is an automaton, a pod-movie, and, thankfully, proved the death nail for such high-concept filmmaking.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    If you like to stagger away from a film feeling numb and slightly sick, this one's for you.
  37. Most of the people who see this will own funnier home videos of wedding disasters.
  38. It's fun spotting stars under cakes of make-up and the panache, great supporting cast and good-natured, old-fashioned feel make for a better movie than you remember.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    You can really tell that the people making this film had a lot of fun doing it. The plot is thinner than a compressed wafer, but who cares? It's fun and cheap laughs all the way, and that ain't no crime.
  39. Purposeless waste of director Walter Hill's energies.
  40. Top-flight muscleman entertainment that is not afraid to have a brain or two in its head.
  41. A clever and enjoyable wrapping-up of the time-travelling adventures.
  42. Even worse than it sounds.
  43. Despite the extended running time jam packed with action scene after after scene it still feels a little short on content.
  44. Almodovar consolidated his status as a challenging and bold filmmaker by forcing Americans to drop their zany preconceptions of him and see his world through his eyes.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Despite feeling narratively let off the leash, Last Exit retains the passion of the novel, as well as the switch-blade characterisation.
    • 19 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Nothing more than a romp in Rio, which is fair enough if that's how your get your kicks.
  45. Predictable and flat, the sort of cop-out horror movie which relies on sending up long-outdated female stereotypes of the matron vs the siren. Nothing particularly refreshing or even frightening resides within.
  46. More than an average thriller, but far from Lumet's finest hour.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unashamedly rubbery fun.
  47. This is brutal, gory, at times downright sickening stuff, and somewhat twisted types are likely to laugh like a drain.
  48. Directed by Tony Bill and written by Mitch Markowitz, there are far worse comedies than Crazy People out there on the market and Dudley Moore's adverts are, at times, pretty darn hilarious.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    From the astonishing studio sets and (Gaultier-designed) costumes to Gambon’s performance (so ferociously wicked that it beggars description), Greenaway attacks his targets with a sadistic obsession that is, frankly, terrifying. Many people will be profoundly offended by this film — by the monstrous misanthropy that Greenaway lays bare through it, by the spiteful images of women in a vicious world — but some may appreciate it for what it certainly is: the most startling depiction of intellectual cruelty and evil for many years.
  49. Kids will love it but adults may find it just too silly to sit through.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Peppered with fun-to-spot cameos (can you spot Williem Dafoe?), the parody-satire script works well with Depp's adept handling of the titular bad boy. A delinquent joy-ride, though without the Hard-core distaste of previous Waters flicks, which may or may not be a bad thing.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A well-rounded, unpretentious, very funny, knockabout adventure - subtly blended so that it's fun for all the family.
  50. Braindead and done to death, this somehow remains a relatively fun ride.

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