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. Great houses, shame about the plotting. The sort of glossy nonsense you might happily half-watch on a lazy Sunday.
  2. Ruinously prioritising chic over content, this is intellectually and stylistically shallow when it should have been dynamic and compelling.
  3. Take That have more than enough hits to give this a solid soundtrack, but the story they’re loosely tied to is weakly constructed and far gloomier than the cheery music deserves.
  4. Neil Marshall’s return to his homegrown horror wheelhouse doesn’t reach the heights of Dog Soldiers and The Descent. Instead, it’s a witch-hunt thriller that lacks the texture to be realistic and the no-holds-barred energy to be pulpy. Sean Pertwee has fun though.
  5. "The Karate Kid" meets "Fight Club" but it's no way near as good as it sounds.
  6. Adapted from the Stephen King killer car novel, this John Carpenter film is more like an assembly line vehicle than a customised job, but is nevertheless a slick, entertaining piece of work.
  7. Too childish and shallow for adults, yet too brutal and gory for kids, this is one Damsel that really does need saving, after all.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    An overly complicated plot and poorly thought-out characters detract from the flashes of charm that Cap'n Jack still emits. Despite quality set-pieces and the best efforts of the cast, this is dull and crossbones.
  8. Like the stranded astronauts, we are forced to sit around for too long in stale air, waiting for something to happen. An overly-long, vacuous foray into space.
  9. A decent enough little B-movie which delivers some pleasingly weird violence and endless plot reversals. But there’s still a mild sense of pointlessness to the whole thing and the feeling that in different hands it could have been much better.
  10. In a month of "A Monster Calls" and "Manchester By The Sea," Collateral Beauty serves up a hollow portrait of grief. Despite its quality cast and slick visuals, the result is sombre and saccharine rather than uplifting.
  11. If "Crash" set your teeth on edge, book in at the dentist's before seeing this one.
  12. Spiral makes an admirable stab at defibrillating an old franchise — but ultimately wastes its stars, caught in the same bear-trap of a formula that befell earlier sequels.
  13. Unless you pine for second-tier Mel Brooks, you'll find more laughs in the Old Testament itself.
  14. Andersen makes a far from inspiring guide, intoning his humourless points in a dry-as-powder monotone.
  15. Does to the medieval era what Cage's Wicker Man did to Anthony Shaffer. Hokum and not in a good way.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Despite John Cena’s best efforts, Ricky Stanicky is a comedy that delivers nothing but tedium, wasting a clever idea by repeating the same jokes over and over.
  16. It's less a film than a series of skits exhumed from the Reynolds original.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Borderline dreadful waste of potential.
  17. Solid performances can’t keep this from being a tonally erratic disappointment. Here’s hoping the next Hoover adaptation is a little less regrettable.
  18. This should have been Soderbergh gold. Instead it is mostly unengaging and dull, proof positive that they don't make them like they used to.
  19. The jingoism is blindingly awful, but by the time of the showdown, the film has descended into an unaware parody of itself.
  20. The building may be taller than The Towering Inferno and the stakes may be higher than those faced by John McClane in Die Hard, but in comparison to both, Skyscraper is little more than a cinematic bungalow.
  21. A genuine disappointment from an intriguing, potentially even subversive premise. It’s another commanding performance to add to Monroe’s oeuvre, but this Cradle is more frustrating and forgettable than it is thrilling.
  22. On paper it looks like a gem – roaring 20s setting, verbal fireworks and a silly sport in its rude infancy. In practice, it's way off the pace, far too slow for its screwball pretensions and the kind of film that confuses pastiche with period detail.
  23. Mark Felt is a lacklustre staging of a fascinating episode in recent US history. Despite Neeson’s strong presence, this is a deep throat that never finds its voice.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Cliché-ridden and full of plot-holes.
  24. Bond meets Star Wars in one of the series' sillier outings.
  25. It’s been done before, and better. With pigs.
    • 27 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    As an origin story that’s all origins and no story, there’s a hollow, stale feeling to this occasionally admirable attempt to Nolanise Marvel’s dysfunctional family.

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