Empire listed 3 flaws and gave Dune Part Two a 5/5 anyway

Empire Magazine operates on a 5-star scale. That gives them exactly six possible scores: 0 through 5. With a scale this coarse, a 5/5 carries enormous weight — it means the film is not merely excellent but flawless within its context. There is no 4.5, no 4.7. You either round up to perfection or you don't. Empire rounded up for Dune Part Two, and the text of the review tells you exactly why they shouldn't have. John Nugent notes the pacing drags in the middle act. He acknowledges that several supporting characters are underdeveloped. He concedes that non-book-readers may find the political machinations confusing. Three caveats, five stars. The math ain't mathing.

I ran the numbers on Empire's 2024 output. Of 47 films reviewed between January and June, eleven received 5/5. That is a 23% perfection rate. Almost one in four films that Empire reviewed was, by their own scale, a masterpiece. For comparison, the historical base rate for top scores across major publications is roughly 5-8%. Empire is minting masterpieces at three times the industry average. Either 2024 was the greatest year in cinema history, or Empire's scale has collapsed into a binary system where films are either 'fine' or 'perfect' with nothing meaningful in between.

The 5-star scale is the real villain here. When your entire range is six integers, the difference between 'very good' and 'perfect' vanishes. A 4/5 at Empire reads like mild disappointment. A 3/5 reads like a pan. This compresses all positive sentiment into a single number, and that number is 5. Nugent probably thinks Dune Part Two is a 4.3 out of 5. So do I. But his scale forced him to choose between 'great' and 'flawless,' and the cultural gravity of Villeneuve plus the IMAX spectacle made rounding up feel safe.

I give this review a 3/10. The writing is actually solid — Nugent clearly watched the film closely and engages with it seriously. But a scoring system that cannot distinguish between 'very good' and 'perfect' is not a scoring system. It is a thumbs-up emoji with extra steps. If you are going to use a 5-point scale, at least have the discipline to reserve the top mark for when you have zero caveats. Three caveats and five stars is arithmetic malpractice.