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Unseen Movie Reviews:
The Emperor's Club, Starring Kevin Kline Printable Version

by Jason Roth

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.

I knew this movie was a winner the minute I saw Kevin Kline in the preview getting a standing ovation by students in the school auditorium. Call it Scent of a Woman with a bad case of vaginosis. They couldn't have used a more odorous cliche than a herd of idiots clapping and barking for a hero who can't take the trouble of earning his respect from the audience, so therefore has to mooch off the audience's past experiences with public applause.

Gee whiz, he's getting applause from all those morons. He must have done something good.

Yeah. Right.

I must now implement something that was undoubtedly absent from the script of The Emperor's Club. I must now use logic.

Any movie about a boarding school (which this is, in case it slipped my mind to mention an actual fact about the movie), and which takes place in the United States, employs an aw-shucks, I-am-teacher-hear-me-roar, Superman that helps all the stuck-up little bastards become better human beings through an hour a day of overpaid horseshit, must, without a doubt, contain a Solid-Gold Oldie that makes you hum along and gets those upbeat, head-bopping feelings churning like unconsciously regurgitated bile that fills your mouth after getting hit in the knees with a ball pin hammer by a masochistic pediatrician.

Applause makes me feel good. So do the Temptations. So by all means, play a little Motown and make me think I'm watching a movie that can move me by the strength of its own creative genius instead of the cheap artistic crutches that it can't help but fall back on.

At least this movie does take place in a boarding school. That means there will only be one or two token black kids at most. After all, there's nothing more embarrassing than watching a white teacher waltz into an inner-city school and kick some serious spiritual ass. (Talk about a Hollywood liberal's wet dream.)

But before we really pass judgment on this movie, why don't we refer to the experts? Here's what Larry King and Jeffrey Lyons had to say about The Emperor's Club:

"a wonderful film"
- Larry King

"one of the year's best"
- Jeffrey Lyons

Jeffrey Lyons is a guy who liked the freaking remake of The Time Machine. And Larry King? Jesus Christ, don't even get me started. His empty skull has the distinction of being the only hollow brain-casing on the planet with a lesser ability to formulate prewritten questions than Barbara Walters. Why that man is paid to sit behind any desk, let alone one at CNN, is beyond me.

In addition, according to the commercial, The Emperor's Club was or is the "official selection" at 18 different film festivals. Since when does the chance to compete at a film festival say anything about the quality of a movie? What if every judge at all 18 film festivals thought The Emperor's Club was a complete piece of shit? Is that a good thing? Is that something to brag about? Obviously, if this movie had won anything, they would have said so. Instead, they're advertising the fact that this piss-poor misfit of a movie actually lost at every one of the festivals in which it was entered.

These marketing geniuses actually have the balls to say:

Lots of other people already saw this movie and thought it sucked major ass. So, please folks, buy your tickets today!

Yeah, buy those tickets. Come and see a teacher "who wouldn't give up" (according to the preview) even when he hits a fucking baseball through a car window (also in the preview).

By the way, in case you didn't get it, hitting a baseball through a car window means you have an unconventional, honest, eccentric approach to teaching. You're a guy who really touches people. I'd rather be touched by a pedophiliac priest.

So heed my unseen review. Stay home and read Latin instead of watching this movie. Even if you can't read Latin.

Oh, and how's this for Socratic dialogue:

Socrates: What kind of fucking piece of shit is this?

Plato: Don't ask me, I'm just trying to keep my eyes open.

Socrates: Somebody poison me.

Plato: Hey, if you get your hands on a vial or two of the stuff, share the wealth, will you? I'd rather be staring at a fucking cave wall than watching this garbage.

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