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11/21/02
The Emperor's Club (2002)
50
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:125
Fresh:63
Rotten:62
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: Though Kline is excellent in his portrayal of Hundert, the movie is too dull and sentimental to distinguish itself from other titles in its genre.
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: At St. Benedict's prep school, the boys are disciplined, mannered, and ready to learn. But when a bad apple enters the classroom of the well-respected Mr. Hundert (Kevin Kline), chaos ensues.... [More]
Starring: Kevin Kline, Emile Hirsch, Steven Culp, Patrick Dempsey
Director: Michael Hoffman
Reviews for The Emperor's Club
Kline's powerful and even daring portrayal may be wrapped inside a fairly traditional movie, but it's definitely worth seeking out.
11/21/02
The obvious sincerity of director Michael Hoffman and star Kevin Kline doesn't translate to on-screen energy.
11/21/02
Kevin Kline brings all of his considerable charisma and magnetism to the role.
11/21/02
Features an exceptionally strong performance from Kline, an actor who consistently raises the level of nearly every film he's in.
11/21/02
The ill-conceived modern-day ending falls flat where it should deliver a moral punch.
11/21/02
It's hard to believe that this film by Michael Hoffman ... is so humorless, so bloodless, so mawkish, so talky.
11/21/02
What's at stake in this film is nothing more than an obsolete, if irritating, notion of class.
11/21/02
In the spirit of Canin it ought to be, yet director Michael Hoffman and screenwriter Neil Tolkin can't resist converting rumination into plot, then tailoring the plot to the explication of messages they don't trust us to get -- or argue with.
11/21/02
Movies with 25 guys wearing the same tie leave me cold.
11/21/02
[Presents] a truer and more touching picture of the classroom.
11/21/02
Canin's story is far more effective, but because of its basic premise, The Emperor's Club is more than just another feel-good teacher movie.
11/21/02
Thinking about what the film might have been makes it almost impossible to enjoy the film that is.
11/21/02
Makes some interesting, and doubtless, truthful points about the way a flamboyant, charismatic student frequently draws a teacher's attention away from the reliable workhorses.
11/21/02
Kline gives a beautiful performance, one every bit as moving as Williams' in Dead Poets Society, Robert Donat's in Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Michael Redgrave's in The Browning Version.
11/21/02
Both ploddingly earnest and curiously phony...the surface gloss can't disguise the emptiness of what lies within.
11/21/02
An old-fashioned drama of substance about a teacher's slide down the slippery slope of dishonesty after an encounter with the rich and the powerful who have nothing but disdain for virtue.
11/21/02
A remedial-course version of `Dead Poets Society' that...manages just enough good will of its own.
11/21/02
Kline does a welcome, restrained job as a prof whose ambivalent relationship with his own successful father shades his teacherly relationship with a senator's kid.
11/21/02
This is a thoughtful drama about big ideas, and it makes some moves and says some things that are as unexpected as they are affecting.
11/21/02
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