Critic consensus:In terms of the gangster genre, Empire's story is yet another tired retread.

Numbered reviews:1. Victor is great character, played with macho zeal by Leguizamo.
2. An entertaining, colorful, action-filled crime story with an intimate heart.
3. If it takes too many familiar steps, it is still never less than compelling as it walks the well-trod line.
4. Yes, we're walking those mean streets again. Good thing we're taking a few unanticipated turns.
5. Unfortunately, Empire is nothing more than an exhausting retread of the same cliched urban cautionary tale that waxes about rebellion and redemption.
6. The film ends up being derivative of every drug-themed, drug-centered movie we've ever seen, and goes down the same dark unforgiving and predictable path as all the others did.
7. There isn't a redeeming character to be found in Empire which makes it awfully hard to enjoy.
8. What "Empire" lacks in depth it makes up for with its heart.
9. Try as I may, I can't think of a single good reason to see this movie, even though everyone in my group extemporaneously shouted, 'Thank you!' when Leguizamo finally plugged an irritating character late in the movie.
10. A yawningly familiar melodrama about an enterprising hustler who's undone by his own ambitions.


Critic consensus:With middling CG effects and a distinct lack of fun, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor finds the series past its prime.

Numbered reviews:1. This reawakens but doesn't reinvigorate a franchise that was already curling at the edges seven years ago, with The Mummy Returns.
2. If you wanted to be totally accurate it should be The Mummy With The Same Formula As Before Except In China And Without Any Mummies. It's only slightly less catchy than the current title.
3. Although the formula remains much the same tanna leave concoction as before, there are a indeed few new wrinkles on the dessicated old corpse, just enough to make this pleasant popcorn movie for viewers seeking action and adventure.
4. ...passable popcorn entertainment, it's just disappointing that they couldn't find anything new or original.
5. I know The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is nothing more than a popcorn movie... But even silly pop movies have standards and this one falls short of those.
6. It's one thing to make a film for the pre-teen market, it's quite another to make a film that sounds like it was written by one.
7. Disappointing threequel with a badly written script, irritating characters, dodgy CGI work, a miscast Maria Bello and an underused Jet Li.
8. The whole thing, despite its decent start and $100 million, looks a bit of a mess to me. An entertaining one, no doubt, for those who love the franchise, but a bore for those who don't much care but would have preferred a more well organised film
9. A crazy-quilt comic book with Michelle Yeoh as a sorceress, a tribe of Abominable Snowmen, a visit to Shangri-La, a three-headed dragon, and Hong Kong's most honored actor, Anthony Wong, as a nutcase general. Kids should love it
10. None of the action sequences generate any excitement at all and the in-between stuff is so wilfully nutty that it falls completely flat.


Critic consensus:A frantic and taut Korean serial killer thriller. One classy, if bloody and messy, gut wrencher of a movie.

Numbered reviews:
1. Na Hong-Jin's feature debut is a bleakly frantic psycho-noir, furiously edited, ferociously performed - and despite allying itself to the serial killer genre so beloved in the west, it is distinctly Korean in its settings and references.
2. Some of the tension drains from a slow middle act, but it remains a gripping tale of sleuth-work and moral awakening.
3. It runs so fast and twisted a course through a range of tones and genres that just trying to keep up will leave the viewer as breathless as the monstrous protagonist - and it has a real social conscience to boot.
4. It announces Na Hong-jin as a filmmaker willing to go to places that even most so-called horror movies would shy away from.
5. It's twisty, provocative and impressively grim, a sort of Asian-extreme Manhunter for the strong of nerve.
6. It's atmospheric but derivative, and I didn't find the denouement's Christian imagery convincing.
7. Watching the Korean film The Chaser is like chewing diamonds - you know there's something of value in there but mostly it's just a mess of pain and blood.
8. This playfulness, however, backfires massively in the second half when coincidence and unforeseen consequence conspire uneasily with bloody, messy results.
9. South Korean first-timer Na Hong-jin offers nasty thrills, manic foot chases and some genuinely subversive riffs on the police procedural.
10. Unlike the directors of Infernal Affairs, Hong-Jin refreshingly fuels his philosophical engine with montage.