Empire (2002) Critic Reviews

Leguizamo 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.Read the full review

In regard to Franc. Reyes' engrossing and utterly uncompromising Empire let it be said right at the top that the protean John Leguizamo, last seen as Toulouse-Lautrec in "Moulin Rouge," gives one of the best performances of the year in a lead role in an American movie.Read the full review

A gangster movie with the capacity to surprise. People do unexpected things and for reasons we wouldn't anticipate.Read the full review

Comes so close to working that you can see there from here. It has the right approach and the right opening premise, but it lacks the zest and it goes for a plot twist instead of trusting the material.Read the full review

Choreographer-turned-filmmaker Franc. Reyes covers familiar ground without stumbling or dazzling.Read the full review

Stereotypical, banally written bloodbath.Read the full review

Rossellini 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.Read the full review

A retread of material already thoroughly plumbed by Martin Scorsese.Read the full review

Empire devolves into a bloody revenge thriller with an ending as primitive as its opening is convoluted.Read the full review