Empire's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 6,820 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 0.8 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:
6820 movie reviews
  1. Neither a luridly enjoyable piece of Scarface-style pulp or a nuanced genre subversion, Idris Elba’s directorial debut is a fitfully entertaining 1980s gangster thriller.
  2. A Jamaican classic with an awesome OST.
  3. As absurd as their story is, it’s hard not to be won over by Lightning & Thunder. You will have Sweet Caroline stuck in your head for what feels an eternity afterwards, though.
  4. 22 July takes a helicopter view of a terrifying, unthinkable tragedy, perhaps flying too high to capture all the nuance, complexities and emotion. Still it has great stretches and a terrific performance by Anders Danielsen Lie.
  5. It's gratifying to see Butler giving a proper acting role the old college try. Despite his best efforts, Forster's film, while pulling no punches, still somehow manages to miss the mark.
  6. Pi
    Shot in grainy, high contrast black-and-white with a lot of simple but effective optical and aural tricks to suggest the workings of his unusual mind, this is one of the most intimate movies in recent memory.
  7. Run
    Well played and well shot, Run’s idea of relocating Springsteen’s America to a rain-swept Scottish fishing town is interesting, but sadly it runs out of gas and road before it hits the horizon. Less baby we were born to run, more baby we were born to drive around in circles for a bit.
  8. Part Alien, part Gravity, just not as good as either of them. But Life whips along at a decent pace and deploys enough engaging action sequences to make it work.
  9. It's nothing wildly original, but it is pacey and entertaining when it gets going.
  10. As an unashamed B-movie, The Crush does what it says on the tin and entertains for an hour and a half. Except you feel kind of cheated by the supposed climax, with the build up proving more disturbing. Silverstone is convincingly equal parts Lolita and Norman Bates.
  11. Fox is fun as a demonic harpy, but sadly the meeting of Hollywood’s two rock’n’roll queens is closer to safe studio product than slash-and-burn envelope-pusher.
  12. Poorly written nonsense, but lovers of beefcake action will be happy enough with the heroes gymnastically vaulting monsters and slicing and dicing their way around the ancient world. An extra star for Ralph Fiennes, who is a god.
  13. The sight of the Muppets making their first movie appearance since 1992's Christmas Carol - with no technological wizardry or flashy special effects applied to update the simple but effective puppetry techniques - proves to be a sobering experience. And the attempt of Jim Henson's bug-eyed creations to keep up with the times results in a breezily entertaining yet old-fashioned brew.
  14. After the fizzle of the later Roger Moore Bonds, The Living Daylights brings in a new 007 in Timothy Dalton, who manages the Connery trick of seeming suave and tough at the same time, and tried to get away from the weak comedy in favour of proper international intrigue.
  15. Ünel and the debuting Kekilli are as impressive as Akin’s atmospheric snapshots of Hamburg and Istanbul.
  16. While it proves an all-round well-mounted distraction, Ant-Man And The Wasp undeniably lacks the scale and ambition of recent Marvel entries.
  17. Powerhouse cameos, just enough sauce and extra anchovies that no one will be complaining about.
  18. A gripping, affecting, strange movie -- but oddly, it's just like too many other gripping, affecting, strange movies we've seen recently.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Erman could have made a movie that left the Bette Midler stereotype in the eighties where it belonged, but he didn't. Great if you're a Bette fan, somewhat trying if you're not, though thankfully some of the sheer hamminess has been dulled with time.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hall is very funny as the energetic adolescent pest and a good supporting cast includes the Cusack sibings John and Joan.
  19. Despite some good moments, Agents J, O and K are missing an E.
  20. An interesting premise but stodgy, suspense-free execution.
  21. Franchise fans will enjoy seeing the Lamberts again, but newcomers will be baffled by the under-developed story and nonplussed by the over-familiar scares.
  22. Lurie's remake doesn't bring a lot of fresh ideas to the table. The thick fug of moral ambiguity, so disconcerting in Peckinpah's film, is missing, replaced by certainties rife in modern horror. The result is a bit of yawn enlivened only by James Woods' delirious bad guy.
  23. Unsurprisingly this is the worst in the RoboCop trilogy, with the plot proving ridiculous, excelling itself particularly in the climax. For what was a promising debut, it's reputation was quickly tarnished with the drivvel such as this that followed.
  24. My Dog Skip for people in mid-life crises, it?s too talky and trouble-laden for tykes but will doubtless prove as critic-proof to dog-lovers and the stars? fans as it did in the US.
  25. It’s an adequate retelling, mostly, but with moments of eye-rolling ineptitude.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Neither terrible, boring nor soporific, just not very funny.
  26. A children’s film for pensioners, 80 For Brady is an absurd, silly mess. But in spite of itself — and thanks to the warm, genuine chemistry of its legendary leading ladies — it is sweet, and difficult to truly begrudge.
  27. Mamoru Hosoda’s continuing experiments with animation are passable enough. But it’s not enough to uplift this loose adaptation of a literary classic with its rather clumsy thesis on cycles of violence. 

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