THE EMPIRE - Mark Reviews Movies

The Empire, Kino Lorber

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 6, 2025

Beyond some of the strange but familiar sights of The Empire, there's almost nothing of note going on in writer/director Bruno Dumont's science-fiction tale. Maybe, that's the joke, if the filmmaker sees big-budget movies about superheroes and aliens and grand galactic threats as superficial, hollow, and repetitive. What he misses in this exercise, however, is that making a movie that's even more superficial, hollow, and repetitive isn't exactly the kind of takedown one might imagine. It's definitely not funny.

This assumes, of course, that Dumont is going for satire with this modern-day story, in which warring factions of aliens have brought their war to Earth. On one side, there are the good guys, called 1s, who hope to encourage the best elements of humanity. On the other, there are the demonic visitors, called 0s, who hope to bring about the baser and worse quality of human beings. It's the light side going up against the dark side, basically, and the presence of laser swords suggests that Dumont might have a specific franchise in mind with his thin story.

It's so dull, though, that pretty much any target of ire or satire would look better by comparison. If it's all meant to be a joke, by the way, why does Dumont take the material so seriously in the first place?

We're gradually introduced to a quartet of characters whose otherworldly goals meet and collide with some down-to-earth concerns. Among the 0s on the planet, Jony (Brandon Vlieghe) has the role of something of a scout and a guardian on Earth for his supreme leader Belzébuth (Fabrice Luchini, whose performance is the only one suggesting some overtly comedic approach to the material). He's the father or, perhaps, the stepfather of a baby who is destined to grow up to become the alien equivalent of an antichrist or something like that, but since the child's mother and his ex-wife is still in the picture, Jony does have to contend with split custody.

That comes to an end, though, when Rudy (Julien Manier), the ex's new boyfriend, intentionally forces the car of the boy's mother off the road and, to make sure she isn't around anymore, decapitates her with his laser sword.

One would presume this makes Rudy one of the villainous aliens, but no, it turns out he's aligned with Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei), the chief of the 1s on Earth who goes around in a bikini or short-shorts and midriff-exposing tops for the entire movie. There must be a reason for that, although it's quite convenient that not a single 0 ever confronts her, considering that her dress isn't exactly befitting a fearless galactic warrior.

The plot basically comes down to the alien factions' conflicting goals. The 1s, whose spaceship is in the form of a cathedral, want to kill the baby before it comes of age, and the 0s, whose vessel is a replica of the Palace of Versailles, want to keep the baby alive so that it can eventually bring about the ruin of humanity's morals and usher in the 0s complete rule over Earth.

It's that simple, yet if one somehow misses the basic premise, do not fear. The characters repeat it over and over again, while also talking about how good the good aliens and how bad the bad ones are, before discussing their motives over and over yet again. It keeps going on and on like this, until Belzébuth takes that human form and occasionally does some comic business with his eccentric costume and his bigger facial expressions. Dumont even brings in a pair of characters from a previous project of his—namely a pair of bumbling detectives (played by Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore) from his TV miniseries "Li'l Quinquin." Presumably, they're present here, since they don't actually do much of anything that affects the plot or other characters, to assure us that the movie is meant to be a comedy.

Again, it's tough to tell from the material itself, which is played with stone faces and oblivious severity. To be sure, the blending of realistic elements, mainly the backdrop of the French coast and alien knights riding horses while wearing hooded sweatshirts, and those grander visual effects, such as the massive spaceships traveling through the expanse of space, is intriguing as an idea. The Empire, though, wrongly believes that and a lot of circular talk about empty plotting and shallow philosophy are enough to make some point about the state of the world, the movies, both, or, for that matter, anything.

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