If you are a big fan of "Dead
Poet's Society", you might find yourself drawing some comparisons
to "The Emperor's Club". Try not to do this if you want to
enjoy "The Emperor's Club". Let this movie be its own, and
you will enjoy it for that. It eventually departs from any
similarities with "Dead Poet's", and takes on its own issues
of ethics within a classroom, within society and within oneself.
Kevin Kline plays a well-respected teacher at an all boys private
school during the 1970s. Everything is perfect in Mr. Hundert's
classroom until a new rich kid, whose father is a senator, is placed
in the class and wreaks havoc in Kline's perfect classroom. Like a
good teacher however, Kline's character doesn't back down from the
student and instead, sees him as a challenge to mold him into a
morally respectable person.
Most of the movie takes place in the seventies, but the film jumps
ahead twenty-five years after the students have graduated, and they
have all come together again at a sort of a reunion. Sometimes when a
movie does this, I find that it is difficult to reattach yourself to
the adult characters once you have accustomed yourself to the youthful
kids. But "The Emperor's Club" avoids this by having the
adult segment fairly lengthy, giving the viewer time to get to know
the characters again. This in turn helps keep the poignancy of what
the movie is trying to say, and also helps maintain the impact of the
character's dilemmas, keeping the core point of the film intact.
"The Emperor's Club" is a good movie and manages to keep the
viewer's interest by showing the character's growth in ethics and
values that was instilled upon them by one of their more favored
teachers. We've all had one of those, haven't we?
The DVD has a sharp visual quality. The DVD quality sound would have
been more noticeable if director Michael Hoffman had chosen to crank
up the 70s rock tunes louder and more often.
The bonus features are typical - audio commentary by the director,
cast and crew bios, deleted/extended scenes and a making-of featurette.
The deleted scenes are nothing of note, but the extended scenes are
interesting and I think would have been useful in the film. The
featurette is worthwhile to watch because everyone talks mainly about
the challenges a person may face when their morals and values are put
into a position where they have to question them. Certainly better
than watching the actors and directors talk about, "oh, it was a
pleasure to work with so-and-so" and "they're so
professional".
