andy_c_les

The problem with a show covering this period is that it's going to be compared to I Claudius and Rome, both of which are fantastic. This is not. It starts well and tries to stay with the history but as it goes on it takes more and more liberties untill it just blatantly makes stuff up. This is from the point of view of a historian. It's made harder to get into the show as it's jumping around in time and keeps changing the actors so half the time you're trying to work out who is who. In summary, starts well but by season two I'd lost all interest. If you like period dramas set at this time try HBOs Rome or I Claudius, both are so much better.

The film is quite interesting at first but quickly runs out of steam. About a poor kid with not personality pining after a posho with personality. For some unknown reason the posho takes the poor one under his wing. You'd hope, when watching that the poor kid would now blossom but he doesn't, he's still dull and barely says a word. There are some interesting bits and now and then it threatens to get good but it doesn't. Instead it drags and rolls on. By the end I'd lost all interest and was very happy I didn't pay to watch this mess. Quite often I thought I was watching a very bad episode of Fresh Meat, which is far far better.

I love so many of Ridley Scotts films I went to see this one with high hopes. The sets and costumes look amazing and can't fault the acting, Joaquin did a great job as Napoleon. The problem is that there's no flow, no story and you don't care about the characters. The film lists events in Napoleons career and picks up at those dates but there's no subtext. We are shown that Napoleon is besotted with Josephine but then we spend the next two hours trying to figure out why. The result is a very disjointed series of events from Revolutionary France that you don't care about. There's no visible story and as a result this feels like a very long and boring film. Now that I've seen it I have no desire to ever see it again.