Here are review links for this film submitted by our members:
- David “DC” Bolling @ Film YAp
- Excerpt: “Empire of Light” showcases another impressive Olivia Colman performance, along with Deakins’ lush cinematography and a great score. That said, Sam Mendes’ latest is missing a sense of magic that made me feel disconnected throughout the story.
- Travis Burgess @ The Sacred Wall
- Excerpt: Olivia Colman gives an all-time great performance in ‘Empire of Light.’ Too bad the rest of it is unwatchable
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: the central relationship [Mendes] hangs it all on is misguided, leaning into the Magical Negro trope with Stephen’s all-too-perfect treatment of the damaged, fragile Hilary a sentimental fantasy symbolized by his care of a pigeon with a broken wing.
- Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com
- Excerpt: We bask in the period detail and cringe at the on-the-nose dialogue that always reminds us how “different” our two leads are. Colman and Ward are both very good, but neither can transcend the cardboard cutouts they’re asked to play.
- Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment
- Excerpt: It’s the kind of film that would epitomize what people think movies that win awards are all about. Were this some 90s effort coming from Miramax, that may have been closer to the truth. As it stands today, all I see is a rundown theater.
- [New] | Josh Thayer @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: Set roughly between the fall of 1981 and the spring of 1982, Mendes’s film is a wonderfully realized character study following the lives of the employees at a seaside British cinema.
