I'm not quite sure who The Emperor's Club is for. It plays like a patrician knock-off of Dead Poets Society...

| Dec 9, 2021

A soulless rehashing of Dead Poet's Society is hardly the savior of American education

| Original Score: C- | May 31, 2012

Some mature content, but fine for many teens.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 28, 2010

Prep school professor tries to mold his students into upstanding young men, in particular one problem student. Ho-hum.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 29, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2008

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 30, 2006

While it does trumpet good virtues and offer good lessons, it does so without grit, passion, or originality.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Dec 6, 2004

...allows Kline to play the sort of cocksure character he specializes in.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 1, 2003

William Hundert (Kevin Kline) isn't charismatic or cool… I like that about him. He isn't selling his own personality, authenticity, or commitment; he isn't selling education as self-actualization (Dead Poets Society)…

| Original Score: B | Aug 1, 2003

Welcome to The Emperor's Club, close affiliate to the Dead Poet's Society and Mr Holland's Opus, where students arrive in limousines and wear ties to class.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 23, 2003

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 17, 2003

Kevin Kline's star turn as a good-yet-flawed prep school teacher is a very different take on private-school-flick cliches. ...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 11, 2003

...Teeters on the edge of over-sentimentality, occasionally just going ahead and falling in.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 8, 2003

The generic standard of the super-teacher is only one piece of a larger, more satisfying story that runs counter to the overblown optimism of films like Dead Poets Society.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 13, 2003

One of the better stories about teaching, joining such classics as "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" and "Mr. Holland's Opus.'

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 5, 2003

The Emperor's Club, ruthless in its own placid way, finds one of our most conservative and hidebound movie-making traditions and gives it new texture, new relevance, new reality.

| Original Score: B | Jan 3, 2003

Much smarter and more attentive than it first sets out to be.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 27, 2002

doomed to conformity from the outset by its very setting, which also dictates that the primary themes revolve around honor, loyalty, honesty, and all those other important concepts that define "uplifing" message movies

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 23, 2002

The Emperor's Club looks like a fossil preserved from the 1950s.

| Original Score: C | Dec 16, 2002

The Emperor's Club is a nerd's version of Dead Poets Society...but lacking the wonder, revelation and charisma of the latter.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 16, 2002