Empire's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 6,821 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:
6821 movie reviews
  1. It has about as much depth as a floppy disk, but some lovely, shiny CGI and a stunningly ear-shattering score from Nine Inch Nails makes for a fun if forgettable bit of futuristic fluff. Bio-digital jazz, man!
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    An interesting exploration of class struggle which recalls classics like "Bicycle Thieves" but doesn't quite live up to them.
  2. A small, strangely sweet tale well told. But this is all about Mol, who puts in a performance that gives her a very early lead on next year's Oscar race.
  3. Combining widescreen lyricism and neo-realist intimacy, this is a poignant reflection on the stark situation awaiting so many migrants who risk everything to reach a false paradise. The methodology occasionally feels calculating, but the intentions couldn't be more sincere, as the struggles are destined to continue once the cameras leave.
  4. Formula is now the name of the game, although a steady diet of stunts and shootouts ensures that the audience is never bored.
  5. Farhadi’s gifted storytelling and direction is on show again in a damning look at Iranian society.
  6. He Dreams Of Giants never grips like Lost In La Mancha but it is an entertaining look at Gilliam’s damned-fool idealistic crusade, and an interesting portrait of a filmmaker whose eyes are way bigger than his budget.
  7. An interesting, challenging mess. The White Crow offers lots that’s impressive — Ivenko as Nureyev, the dance sequences, a knuckle-whitening last 20 minutes — but can’t render it in a dramatically engaging way.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    So the prognosis is generally positive, though there may be a touch too much sugar in this motion picture panacea, which is, in places, shamelessly sentimental to an extraordinarily manipulative degree.
  8. Part time-travelling family drama, part idiosyncratic immigrant-adventure comedy, An American Pickle’s gags underwhelm, but its emotion and originality will surprise you. One of oddest films of 2020 so far, buoyed by two superb turns from Rogen.
  9. It’s not the toothless remake we feared, and is often very funny, but there’s a slight imbalance between the Roses that blunts some of its effect.
  10. Classic War caper with a few too many plot contrivances but high on adventure.
  11. If Miike's re-tune of Masaki Kobayashi's bleak samurai tale is a surprisingly subdued affair, aficionados will still find enough sword-based shenanigans to keep them engrossed.
  12. McKellen and Mirren, sharing the screen for the first time, are exquisitely matched in this slight but enjoyable yarn, which is like watching two magnificent vintage cars in a road race, without minding too much who wins.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Plucks at the heart-strings in a far too push-button way.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The eccentric performances make this otherwise flawed film work.
  13. H Is For Happiness has more on its mind than most kids’ flicks and delivers its ideas in an attractive, if familiar, package. And who can resist a film with a character called Douglas Benson From Another Dimension?
  14. A screwball comedy, with two well-cast leads, with a pre-Sex and the City Parker and a amusing Cage. The plot is ridiculous but enjoyably so, with enough jokes to carry it for an hour and a half and a relatively fast pace prevents you from seeing the holes in the story.
  15. Against the odds, perhaps, but part three injects a tiring franchise with new life and some surprisingly dark jokes. Some fun cameos and another winning Dan Stevens turn also add much needed unpredictability to the miniature goings-on.
  16. Ralph Fiennes dazzles as a rock’n’roll maverick in a stylish, unorthodox erotic drama that tries hard but fails to maintain its eccentric momentum.
  17. The first and third acts are over-busy; the middle one moves like an arthritic house-elf. Still, a decent smattering of magic moments and tension's pumped up sky-high. Bring on Part 2.
  18. Despite a familiar, somewhat tedious set-up, Greta truly comes into its own in the final act, a ’90s thriller throwback elevated by Isabelle Huppert tearing up the scenery and dancing all over it.
    • 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.
  19. This is a garish, frequently insane, diamond-encrusted fantasy trip into the mind of a superstar, and we should be grateful to have even limited access.
  20. An entertaining, frivolous ride through a wacky, well-realised world, The Toxic Avenger is a charming underdog story offering plenty of laughs. The very opposite of toxic.
  21. Despite visceral moments, it often feels like an excuse to use footage that didn’t make the 2010 film.
  22. Paltrow does an excellent job as the shy loner, affecting youthful, sulky mannerisms without resorting to stereotype. Anthony Hopkins, meanwhile, brings both gravitas and dark humour as Catherine's mentally ill father, while Jake Gyllenhaal makes for an effective, if buff, maths geek.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dour script but sterling performances from the two male leads, this is basically watchable if you're interested in the subject.
  23. A kind of Italian Fitzcarraldo, Rose Island persuasively argues that dreamers can move mountains. It offers little in the way of surprises, but it’s hard not to be won over by its small-scale delights.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unworthy of comparisons to Hitchcock, but as a thriller it's not a complete failure either.

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