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Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: [Reyes] pushes his shopping cart through the ghetto-drug-flick warehouse, where all the merchandise has been picked over like a Filene's sale rack on the day after Thanksgiving. Read more
John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: You never believe for a minute that the character actor and comedian from Moulin Rouge and Summer of Sam is actually a once-ruthless drug dealer trying to go straight. Read more
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: A witless, unoriginal mishmash of gangsta-drama cliches. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: This is the most predictable plot twist since The Greatest Story Ever Told. You really know this one is coming and it just ruins the whole movie. Read more
Susan Stark, Detroit News: A standard crime drama enlivened by its sense of time, place and character. Read more
Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune: Looks and feels like a low-budget hybrid of Scarface or Carlito's Way. Read more
Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: Leaves no cliche unturned; it's Old Jack City. Read more
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Leguizamo ... gives one of the best performances of the year in a lead role in an American movie. Read more
Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: The characters ... are paper-thin, and their personalities undergo radical changes when it suits the script. Read more
Bruce Fretts, Entertainment Weekly: Between bursts of automatic gunfire, the story offers a trenchant critique of capitalism. Read more
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: It's a grab bag of genres that don't add up to a whole lot of sense. Read more
Matt Weitz, Dallas Morning News: A plot this standard might work if driven by interesting acting, but the performances in Empire are flat and contrived. Read more
Ernest Hardy, L.A. Weekly: Both poignant and wickedly amusing, Empire sets high standards for a subgenre that's rarely had any. Read more
Gene Seymour, Newsday: Another excuse to trot out the usual ghetto-melodramatic bromides: What Happens When You Leave the Old Neighborhood Behind and Remembering Who Your Real Posse Is and, most of all, Respecting the Woman Who Loves You Best. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It has the right approach and the right opening premise, but it lacks the zest and it goes for a plot twist instead of trusting the material. Read more
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The movie's action unfolds laboriously before us, dragged along, bumpety-bumpety, by the plodding voiceover that Leguizamo has the misfortune of delivering. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: A gangster movie with the capacity to surprise. Read more
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Yes, we're walking those mean streets again. Good thing we're taking a few unanticipated turns. Read more
Joe Leydon, Variety: A yawningly familiar melodrama about an enterprising hustler who's undone by his own ambitions. Read more
Laura Sinagra, Village Voice: Reyes's script turns a dissection of ambition into Sleeping With the Enemy-style nonsense. Read more
Desson Thomson, Washington Post: This movie ... doesn't deserve the energy it takes to describe how bad it is. Read more
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A retread of material already thoroughly plumbed by Martin Scorsese. Read more