Cliched characters held me away.

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 1999)

A friend of mine recommended that I watch this film so me and some other mates watched it. I thought this was a bad movie and I wasn't going to write in about it but today I decided to check out other people's views. One person seemed to get it - LawnBoy 4 - but everybody else seemed to think it was some wonderful teenage rebellion movie. I like a lot of teenage rebellion movies, Pump Up The Volume being one of my favs - by the same director, but I want to relate to the characters, or if not at least see some quality acting and direction. In my opinion if you are going to introduce a straight A, Harvard-bound character who then turns 180 degrees to be revealed as a speed freak who throws herself at teen idols, then I would try to treat her with a little bit of understated reality based direction, try to make such a huge turn around seem possible. These characters, especially Warren, got on my nerves. The only people that I could relate them to are other characters from other similarly cliched films or even comic books. Empire Records is a bad movie. I think it is time someone made a true nineties teenage rebellion flick, dark, honest and real.