Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
When Capone’s not busy sneaking around searching for Sam Raimi and listening in on all sorts of SPIDER-MAN 2 secrets, he’s screening films so he can bring you early reviews like this one. I love the part in EMPEROR’S CLUB where Kevin Kline stands on a desk and says “O, Captain, My Captain” and then does funny routines about...
... wait... that’s not this movie... is it?!
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. First let me start off by saying how proud I am of my legions of little gangsters who successfully infiltrated the SPIDEY 2 set over the last couple of days. You have done well my minions. I myself even ventured out yesterday and ended up as an extra for about an hour during lunch. There was a 300-ft. crane in a parking lot on Franklin Street suspending a very expensive looking camera aimed straight down at the road. They hoisted the camera up to the top of the crane, and let it free fall almost to street level as we were told to walk back and forth along a sidewalk across the street. I didn't see any actors or Sam Raimi. Doesn't mean he wasn't around, but I didn't spot him. Anyway, after all that excitement, anything that follows would be a let down...and it was.
No matter how honorable your intentions may be, a kind effort can turn right around and poop in your face. That’s the lesson learned in the new Kevin Kline film, THE EMPEROR’S CLUB, a self-righteous, over-inflated load of hooey from usually reliable director Michael Hoffman (SOAPDISH, RESTORATION, and the underrated ONE FINE DAY). Kline plays William Hundert, a legendary private school teacher of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire who also considers it his obligation to “mold” the integrity and moral code of his students. Outside of his students, Hundert has no other life. There’s the hint of a love interest in another teacher’s wife (Embeth Davidtz), but almost nothing is made of this.
I don’t believe it’s ever said explicitly, but the story is supposed to take place 25 or 30 years ago. Mr. Hundert has a roomful of respectful student, when in walks Sedgewick Bell (THE DANGEROUS LIFE OF ALTER BOYS’ Emile Hirsch), who not only makes it a point of disrupting class and disrespecting his teacher, but also changing the entire dynamic of the school. He is the son of a well-renowned senator, who has little time to spend with his only son. At first it appears Hundert is able to turn the kid into a gifted scholar, but after he is discovered cheating during the school’s most important intellectual competition, Sedgewick falls back into his old, barely passing ways until he finally graduates.
There are many problems with THE EMPEROR’S CLUB. I think the audience here are the type of people that liked THE DEAD POET’S SOCIETY, the kind of people that think that prep school kids reciting facts about the Roman emperors is entertaining, the kind of people that aren’t yet sick of films about the noblest of saints, teachers. I’ve got absolutely nothing against teachers, but a movie about one with a single bad apple in a bunch of about 30 is hardly something worth noting. Another problem with the film is Kline’s performance. He is always so good even in questionable films. Here, he’s a limp noodle. There’s nothing to him. How does he feel giving over his life to largely ungrateful kids? Why doesn’t he have a significant other, male or female? (No he’s not supposed to be gay in this film; that would have made him interesting!) What makes Mr. Hundert tick? We never find out. With little information about the character, either in the writing or the performance, we’re left seeing Hundert as a lonely, boring man with a head full of facts and a soul full of cheese whiz.
There’s an entire third act in THE EMPEROR’S CLUB that shows a reunion between Hundert and his students from the Sedgewick Bell days. Bell wishes to restage the competition he cheating during, and Hundert reluctantly complies in exchange for a sizeable donation to the school. This third act is totally unnecessary, and nothing in the films message is changed by having it. Hundert’s opinions about himself, Sedgewick, and his other students doesn’t change an iota, and when it’s over, it feels like an utter waste of time. Unless you’re one of those people who has to see everything Kevin Kline does, stay away from THE EMPEROR’S CLUB, boring the masses at a theatre near you beginning November 22.
