Empire Magazine

darraghmac

has anyone else had it with the folks at empire?

i'm beginning to lose patience with their reviewing system (most movies are in the cinema before they get a review out nowadays)

foreign language and cheap indie films automatically get an extra two stars

navel gazing movies with nicole kidman always rate five stars

and they generally underrate any movie with a budget of over 10 million, just on principle.

none of the empire 'five star' movies i've seen in perhaps the last year have been worthy of the accolade, and they have slated quite a few movies i've enjoyed.

they hype the worst crap ever (matrix sequels) like they were paul ross in the notw or something.

empire used to be the movie bible- does anyone else think that perhaps the crown is slipping a little?

(oh and don't get me started on the 100 greatest movies feature they ran a few months back)

Basq

I definantly agree with you, mate!

Empire has really gone downhill as of late!

The reviewing system is the pits!

Yet, even though i complain, i still am one of the first in queue to buy it on the last Friday of every month.

Chad ghostal

ur.. i kind of agree with you,
theyv always had a messed up rating system,

when i used to read the magazine,
i thought they were fair enough for the lower budget, indie movies, but the big budget films almost automatically got 4 stars..
and they were mostly tripe.

but they have serveral different reviewers, who all have very different views on films, you cant expect their reviewers to react the same way to all the movies..

and they only hype up whats being hyped up by every general public movie mag/show. .

And on top of that its a pretty carp magazine anyways. :dunno:

Wacker

Darragh, I agree with what you said about ther reviews, but the 100 greatest movie thing was a public poll. If you disagree with it, you should do this: write down your own 100 favourite films on a piece of paper, and stick it to your wall for you to admire whenever you want. Or else you can learn to deal with other people having different opinions to you.

sceptre

Originally posted by darraghmac
paul ross in the notw or something.

Ah, I wondered why Paul Ross regularly gets a roasting over on thedvdforums.com. If I'd ever read the NOTW I'd have known.

And yeah, Empire has been crap for a few years now. I stopped taking it (ooh, very British-newspaper-readery) around 1998 or 1999 as it was getting crap then so I hope it hasn't probed new depths. I still take in the odd review on the website though.

ArthurG

Totally agree - what on earth has happened to them??. Used to put a lot of faith in Empire, however the dreaded dumbing down seems to have taken hold. Oh well.... Out of interest, what mag would people recommend as a replacement?.

curlywee

Ive been reading Empire since day one and have allways viewed it as a fairly light read and not to be taken too seriously a natural sucessor to Photoplay (who remembers that !)

For serious film criticism see Sight and Sound

Or Hotdog floats my boat now - but jasus its expensive

wataru

In fairness to Empire, they did not hype the Matrix sequels, It was a common concensus among the million or so of the DVD generation for whom the first film had meant so much, that the sequels could not be crap thus they did some coo covers a preview or ten and that was that.:rolleyes: , this was Empire's position pre review of both sequels, while I must admit that they were a little too fair to Reloaded, their Revolutions review slated it deservedly...

I do not agree with every review I have seen in Empire but I do not understand how people can expect to relate completely to every sentiment published in a magazine that is based on art and therefore personal interpretation, it may not be the great magazine that it was, but what ya gonna do? As it stands we are not inundated with excellent film mags and I'm afraid as far as being topical and relevant to the current film industry goes, Empire does the job pretty well.

Cactus Col

I don't agree with all of their reviews ..... their dvd/video reviews seem to be slightly fairer ...

and considering they have to make their money why wouldn't they extensively cover big films like the Matrix sequels ... especially when just putting them on the cover increases sales (they don't know the films are gonna be crap until their released)

I just wish NEON was still around .... that was a mag with style ... father ted and dougal dressed as luke skywalker and leah (?) on the cover ... brilliance

kurtmark22

I love the news & articles sections in Empire as they always have intresting things to say. The interviews are usually good as well.

I have to say though that lately the review section has being annoying me as I find myself disagreing with their reviews more & more