Movie studio prick #1:
"Do you think the title sounds too much like Dead Poets Society?"
Movie studio prick #2:
"No, they'll never notice."
In Hollywood's never-ending quest to produce a film that resides even lower in the galactic trash heap of cinematic failure, comes the new Kevin Kline film, The Emperor's Club.
They just couldn't do it. They couldn't let Dead Poets Society rot in its grave. Somebody had to go and dig it up.
They dug up its rotting body, dressed it up in a pair of loafers, khaki Dockers, and an ugly, second-hand, navy-blue Izod sweater. Then they added a preppy haircut and phony New England accent that would make you beg just to be locked up for a year inside a French insane asylum for half-deaf retards with speech impediments.
And don't forget that haircut. Human hair keeps growing after you die, and you know how hairy Robin Williams is to begin with. The last thing anyone wants to see is a Dead Poets Society II starring Captain fucking Caveman.
Ah, the beauty of experiencing the 18th reincarnation of Dead Poets Society, or if you prefer, the 500th reincarnation of The Browning Version, one of which contained the phrase Carpe Diem, and the other of which was a great fucking movie about a Latin teacher.
And I guarantee you that The Emperor's Club tries to motivate the shit out of you with at least one phrase in Latin. In fact, if The Emperor's Club doesn't contain at least one Latin phase, I hereby solemnly swear to spend one night in a Roman bathhouse with Kevin Kline, dressed up like Caligula while getting fisted with a marble statue of Caesar and doing naked recitations of Virgil's Aeneid.
This movie is about as inspirational as a docu-drama about the life of Aristotle starring Jerry Lewis and a monkey. With a soundtrack of banjo music written and performed by Leonard Nimoy.
The Emperor's Club is one of those movies that counts on you to have seen five hundred other "unconventional teacher comes in and shakes shit up" movies exactly like it, at least one of which you actually liked, just so the neurons in your brain can be tapped for leftover electricity generated by emotions that were, at some point in your life, actually real.
The Emperor's Club is the film equivalent of the Chris Farley character from Saturday Night Live:
Remember that time when you told all those kids to seize the day and stuff, and they got all inspired? Remember that? That was awesome.
Kevin Kline, although admittedly possessing the potential to depict actual human beings on the screen, nevertheless ought to be shoved down the staircase from Up the Down Staircase for making this piece of trash. Almost single-handedly, Kline turns To Sir With Love into a Dear John letter that would prompt even the brassiest-balled war hero to jump in front of a discharging howitzer.
Somebody duct-tape me in front of a screen playing round-the-clock reels of Mr. Holland's Opus and throw away the scissors.
The experience of watching this movie is like an old married couple having a baby just to relieve the utter boredom of each other's company, when they ought to be filing for divorce or plotting each other's deaths with ice picks. It's time to admit that the feeling just ain't the same. They should've had the abortion when they had the chance. Now they, and we, are stuck with the fucking thing.
But I'll tell you one thing. I ain't changing the diapers.
