38
Metascore
27 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83Entertainment WeeklyBruce FrettsEntertainment WeeklyBruce FrettsLeguizamo owns Empire, the first film to capture the live-wire crackle of his one-man stage shows -- He's front and center in nearly every scene, and he holds the screen with a simmering self-assurance.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleA gangster movie with the capacity to surprise. People do unexpected things and for reasons we wouldn't anticipate.
- 60VarietyJoe LeydonVarietyJoe LeydonChoreographer-turned-filmmaker Franc. Reyes covers familiar ground without stumbling or dazzling.
- 50Boston GlobeWesley MorrisBoston GlobeWesley MorrisRossellini doesn't do much more than show up and be a hundred kinds of ravishing. Yet there's a movie in her ageless face and that untamed bouffant.
- 50USA TodayClaudia PuigUSA TodayClaudia PuigStereotypical, banally written bloodbath.
- 40TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghThis tale has been told and retold; the races and rackets change, but the song remains the same.
- 40Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesChicago ReaderJ.R. JonesWatching John Leguizamo labor to keep this leaky vessel afloat, I was reminded of all those Hell's Kitchen melodramas James Cagney rescued in the early 30s.
- 33Portland OregonianShawn LevyPortland OregonianShawn LevyIt's deeply ordinary, depressingly shabby stuff.
- 20Village VoiceLaura SinagraVillage VoiceLaura SinagraToo bad the central bedfellowship never gels, and Franc. Reyes's script turns a dissection of ambition into "Sleeping With the Enemy"-style nonsense.
- 16Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam ArnoldSeattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam ArnoldUniversal Pictures has a lot of gall to pick up a movie as thoroughly awful as Empire and -- with a straight face and a $20 million or so ad campaign -- thrust it on the holiday movie market as if it were a significant piece of filmmaking.