Empire Vs. Total Film

Which do you think is the superior magazine. Personally, I think Empire has more well-considered reviews and more accurate scores. What are your opinions?

Reply 1

Jayk

1

Depends really.

Up until about 3 years ago, I rated Total Film over Empire; but recently Empire has been more consistently right - in my opinion, of course. I kind like Total Film for it's slightly tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, but Empire has the better exclusives, and the articles are usually better written.

In the end, I'd honestly just say it was a tie; and of course, being a film geek, I read both :biggrin:

Reply 2

silken1987

1

I've only ever read one copy of Total Film and I thought it was OK. Maybe i'll buy Empire next month and compare the two.

Reply 3

username84864

Empire hands down. Better quality of articles and reviews, a great editing staff and consistantly interesting features. Only let down by the amount of advertising, but TF is the same for that. The only plus of TF are the interest curves they put next to the reviews.

Reply 4

silken1987

1

I like both! Went out and bought a copy of Empire the other day and I think both are equally as good! The only thing I will say is that Empire seems to contain more reviews written in a clearer way. Other than that, both are worthy of £3.70.

Reply 5

Maniacal Mr. Monocle

I used to be an avid collector of both, infact I was something of an addict; I've still got about three years worth of each stacked away in my loft. But as soon as I fell out of love it was instantaneous, I just dropped the habit and never went back. If you're a fan of mainstream, populist filmmaking, or semi-famous cult filmmaking/makers then they will obviously both appeal to you, but if you are more interested in viewing the cinema as a serious art form, then Sight and Sound (or even Film Review, at a stretch) is for you; their analyses are likely to be more thorough and more focused on the artistic merits of a film, than either of the aforementioned, would be.

To be honest, I haven't read a film magazine in ages (mainly because none of them totally satisfied me), so I'm not that well informed on the current issues, but from experience there really is nothing to separate the two, except that Total Film had a bit more creativity to it (particularly with those interest graphs they used to do) and more scope in giving out marks (i.e. out of ten rather than out of 5 stars.) They both tend to appeal to the teens-to-early-thirties lads demographic and if you fall outside that area, or have different tastes to theirs, it's very possible to end up feeling alienated by them. Also, it's rumoured that studio influence holds sway over their critical judgements (whether this has any founding or not, I once heard that a studio would require a favourable review of a movie otherwise they would have no interview or cover feature with it's A-list star.) And Empire will never slag off Star Wars: they were a bit critical of it once and, as a result, ended up getting swarms of letters from angry fans moaning about it.

Reply 6

mattyboi2k8

1

Sight and Sound is a better magazine by far!

Reply 7

JaneThePain

I used to absolutely love Empire, however, I think that over the last year or so it's begun to cater for the fanboy audience too much. In itself, there is nothing wrong with this, but it would be nice to see a different point of view now and again.

Saying this, I still buy it all the time :biggrin:

Reply 8

Krechie

1

I subscribe to Empire (And Q-part of the same company) and i think its a brilliant magazine! They do however appear biased against some filmmakers i find but i think that adds to the striking articles. Love it though :smile: