Load of rubbish!!

i must have seen a different film!!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

more than a good film, it is an useful one. for define the mission and the essence of teacher. for introduce to the passion who could transform biographies. for the role of classics in the manner to understand the life. for the status of honesty and naivety and links between teacher and his students. as teacher, I admire the art of Kevin Kline to explore the nuances of Mr. Hundert. because it is not only a character but map of a form of sacrifice who seems invisible, in many occasions, in social perception. the error to see in the other more than he represents represents an ordinary sin of this noble profession. and the film has the rare gift to translate it in the right manner. to present the past as seed of present is, in same measure, graceful explored in The Emperor s Club. and that does it a special film. about the way to build yourself in the others.

I know this point has been addressed in practically every review for this movie, but I have to talk at least a little bit about Dead Poets Society. This is NOT like DPS in quality, principle, or plot basis. I only say this because I, like I'm sure many people did, expected Emperor's Club to be like a 21st century's Dead Poets. It's not an entirely bad film, but it definitely could have been better. The quality of the plot and characters would have been fine if they were included in a genre other than drama, but since the plot and characters are pretty much the only elements that the story has it's kind of unsatisfactory.The characters as a whole were slightly below average. William Hundert is clearly a solid teacher and does his best to engage all of his students in their education of the Greeks and Romans, but is rather weak and soft outside of the classroom, which aren't great qualities for somebody in his position. The truth is, he fails nearly every student as a result of failing Sedgewick. Sedgewick Bell's main purpose is to elevate himself socially by defying Mr. Hundert. This part of his character is fine, but his exposition as someone who feels the rules don't apply to him feels forced. James Ellerby and Elizabeth had too little screen time for the importance they were treated with and probably could and should have been left out entirely, or at least included differently. If the movie had been a true story, their two characters would have been fine, but since it's fiction, there's really no excuse for their incorporation into the story. Senator Bell's role was good, especially in how his actions on screen generated necessary exposition for how he was treated off screen. The three other main students of Louis Masoudi, Deepak Mehta, and Martin Blythe definitely deserved more attention and I think the movie could have been much better if we got to know the three of them better.The plot could have been much better. The first hour or so is fine with Mr. Hundert teaching his students and going into unofficial battle against Sedgewick's vices. The Mr. Julius Caesar contest was well done too, especially the display of Sedgewick's cheating because it was presented in such a way that the audience keeps perfect pace with the characters. However, the back half with the Julius Caesar rematch was kind of weak. The 25 year hiatus between the two contests was very poorly executed, particularly Mr. Hundert wanting to become principal. It had no pertinence to the rest of the story except to lead in the older Sedgewick funding the school and the Julius Caesar rematch. The scenario was plausible, but they could have easily found another one that wasted much less time on screen (for instance, the school just needs funds for Hundert to keep his job). The second Caesar contest goes fine until we find out that Sedgewick cheats again. The sequence was executed well again, but come on, there was no reason for Sedgewick to cheat again. Winning the contest wouldn't have helped his career or his ego or anything else. Why he wanted the rematch to begin with is perfectly understandable, but unless he's just *that* competitive, there was really no point for him to cheat again. The falling action after the second contest was alright, and you get a good sense of how most of the characters' lives will continue. You might find the ending satisfying, but I couldn't root for Mr. Hundert enough to really feel like he'd earned the recognition of his students.The acting was decent, but don't expect any award-winning performances. The rest of the execution is standard in the score, editing, directing, and stuff like that. The script actually wasn't too bad despite the lower caliber characters.For prospective viewers, I would recommend that you not spend money on it, but not count it out from your "to see" list. It's not bad as a family movie, but you may want to screen it first and see if you want to filter anything. It really could be PG and the scenes that make it PG-13 feel a little forced and don't really advance the characters or story (think Planes, Trains, and Automobiles). I don't know what genre fans I would recommend this to, but probably don't watch it based on any of the actors and be warned that it doesn't have attractive amounts of comedy, romance, action, horror, or qualities of any other genre. Basically, it's all story. If you don't like it after the first Julius Caesar contest, it's probably best to stop. If you want to see it through, just be warned that you might be disappointed. Overall Rating: 7/10.

There many ways to classify films. One way is to divide them into films which will appeal to a broad audience (such as the Indiana Jones series), as opposed to "smaller" films which will appeal to a niche audience. This film is one of the latter. But as we so often see, it is often the niche films which garner little attention in which true greatness rests.This film is not about crashing cars or chases or murder or sex. It's about character.And make no mistake, Kevin Kline's measured performance here is about character, as well. I cannot imagine another actor who would have been so perfect in this role. Kline plays a sort of Mr. Chips at a prep school who inspires his students even while teaching about the Roman Empire, who realizes late in life that he has also failed a couple of his students and attempts to make amends...in one case successfully, in the other case not.Emile Hirsch is excellent in this film, albeit as a young man who become a cheat...and remains so in his adult life. And although the part is small, I rater liked the sensitive performance of Steven Culp, who also played one of Bree's husbands on "Desperate Housewives". In fact, it's difficult to fault any of the performances in this film. Superbly directed by Michael Hoffman.Perhaps this film connects with me because I was a teacher and school administrator. But this film gets a rare "8" from me.

Surfing through the more obscure TV channels I came across The Emperor's Club. To my surprise I found this film enervating and compelling from beginning to end. Sure, there were some ordinary moments, but I felt the emotions of the cast coming straight at me throughout. Kevin Kline was terrific as were all the others, who, by their variety and quantity were a starring but supporting cast. The dialogue at every turn added to the depth of character of the film in its entirety and the interspersing of the quotations added the icing to the cake. The story and its telling was riveting entertainment as well as being completely thought provoking. BLM