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90This isn't a stand up and cheer flick; it's a sit down and ponder affair. And thanks to Kline's superbly nuanced performance, that pondering is highly pleasurable.
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75Kevin Kline's performance shows a deep understanding of the character, who is, after all, better than most teachers, and most men. We care for him, not because he is perfect, but because he regrets so sincerely that he is not.
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75A substantial examination of character, morality and destiny.
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75There's still quite a bit of the essence of "Dead Poets Society" in The Emperor's Club. Thankfully, however, the level of schmaltz and manipulation has been greatly reduced.
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75Like the story, Kline builds in intensity: He has no flowery speeches that would be untrue to his character, but he leaves a clear impression of a man who values knowledge and the imparting of it above all else.
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75A traditionally dressed, old-fashioned drama, starring Kevin Kline in the Robin Williams role -- is as much about the moral development of the adult as about his boys'. More so, maybe.
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75Really two movies working against each other. One is a feel-good movie -- But the more intriguing movie is a tragedy that studies the subtle but long-lasting impact of the teacher's single moral lapse.
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63It's an extraordinary performance in an often brave and intelligent film that, unfortunately, tends to collapse around him in the end -- just as the world of Kline's character, tweedy but likable William Hundert, deconstructs around him.
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63More than just another feel-good teacher movie.
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63The ethical issues driving Michael Hoffman's The Emperor's Club almost outweigh the improbable arc of its story, and Kevin Kline's endearing performance as a prep school classics teacher is almost worth the price of admission.
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63Kline's divine -- alas, the film isn't.
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63Though the plot ends up taking some potentially compelling twists, its telling always feels manipulative.
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63That uncertainty -- in the professor, in the audience -- is what drives Emperor's Club to a surprisingly thought-provoking, even disturbing conclusion.
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63Turns a blind eye to the very history it pretends to teach.
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60It's refreshing that there's any moral at all, and that despite its warm and fuzzy trappings, the film floats actual ideas and sprinkles serious questions of ethics and morality atop the usual Hollywood syrup.
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60This likable but utterly conventional movie works harder than is necessary to unpack for us Ethan Canin’s short story "The Palace Thief."
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50At a time when much public education is in a state of perilous decay, one wonders whether this sentimental ode to old-school dignity and privilege is in touch with today's pressing realities.
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50Don't blame Kline. This most thoughtful of actors is trapped behind the lectern of a film that spouts contradictory lessons it can't reconcile.
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50But with a potentially fascinating study of ethics, of how cheating rich boys become cheating rich men while humble souls do more good in the world, The Emperor's Club doesn't take the audience anywhere smart.
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50Club's inability to moralize saves it from kitsch.
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50It's well crafted by director Michael Hoffman, not painful to sit through, and even contains some 21st century plot twists -- But unless you have a predisposition toward this kind of thing, none of that is going to matter much.
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50Carefully sets itself up as an obvious, transparent morality play, and then just as deliberately refuses the easy payoff. This is both impressive and a little disingenuous: the film is in effect congratulating itself for refusing to offer a neat and tidy view of life without offering much else.
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50A rather stodgily directed pic by Michael Hoffman which extols the virtues of Greek and Roman thinking in the guise of Kevin Kline's classics teacher.
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The film wobbles between impulses to be a simple feel-good story and a trickier, ultimately sadder tale about a man facing a moral and spiritual crisis.
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40Would be a much better film had it not relied so heavily on a bombastic soundtrack (by James Newton Howard) for its emotional impact and spared itself some of the more overdone images of campus life.
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40The film is an old-fashioned morality play writ extra-large, applying a heavy, austere tone to a sequence of events that can't bear the load. The burden falls mostly on Kevin Kline, who trades in his lithe, expressive comedic gifts for a dramatic role that fits him like a straitjacket and a pair of lead shoes.
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40Emperor gives off a distinctly musty odor -- not least because Kline's character.
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30May leave viewers emotionally disconnected from this distinctly unchipper Mr. Chips.
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25Director Michael Hoffman sprays on the tears like a toxic mist. Avoid like the plague.
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25The Emperor's Club is a beautiful fraud -- as gracefully proportioned as a Christopher Wren academy, yet as devoid of content as a prep-school promo film.
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20A movie's script is its fate, which means this one is doomed.
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20It's a simpering, ineffective ersatz-drama, so simple-minded and unrealistic and so full of fussy stupidity, it exiles you.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 14 out of 16
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Mixed: 0 out of 16
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Negative: 2 out of 16
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Roscoe9
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[Anonymous]8