If you're still interested after thirty minutes, you'll like it.

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2010)

Many people will hate Empire Records. I almost didn't like it myself.
It's the characters. Not the actors, they were all pretty decent. But the characters themselves, and the way they were written. So many of them are initially annoying and of-putting, that I almost was dead-set on disliking them from the start.
As the movie went on, that slowly began to change. I started to see a bit more of the humans beneath these initially shallow characters. It's only deep in a Breakfast Club kind of way, so don't expect a deep study on the human condition. If you can't stomach the characters, you haven't missed very much. But, if you can, there's a mildly interesting (but throughly frivolous) tale to be seen.
Plus, you get to see Renée Zellweger actually looking semi-attractive. Who would have ever guessed that was possible?