Such a frustrating disappointment

Good concept, poorly executed.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Ian Holm brings his classic understated acting to the dual roles of Napoleon and his double Eugene.Minor quibbles... at 70, Ian is a tad old to be playing a 52 year old, and his relationship with the thoroughly yummy Pumpkin (Iben Hjejle, who turned down the role of Arwen for the Lord of the Rings (?! now THERE's an alternate history for ya)) is, erm, best glossed over swiftly. And I know it's a movie, but no street in Paris in 1821 was EVER that clean. Apart from that... in every other respect, the soundtrack, editing, casting, costumes, script and tone, it's great fun, and a suitable movie for when you want to be able to watch something that doesn't have explosions, gun play, anything resembling explicit sex or cursing. You know, over Christmas and Thanksgiving when you're trapped in the house with elderly relatives.Watch out for: Holm's face as his character peruses the booths selling Waterloo memoribilia; The 'melon attack plan' scene, which is going on my personal goodies reel and in which one glimpses what a blazing intellect Napoleon was when faced with a tactical and logistical problem; Iben's face as she addresses her dead husband (best crying I've seen by an actress in many moons); Holm's face as he realizes where the good Dr. Lambert (Tim McInnerny) has ditched him.Eddie Marsan as Marchand is great - he gets one little bit that is priceless; all the rest of the supporting cast, including Nigel Terry (I didn't recognize him from John Boorman's Excalibur) are great.Recommended.

"Emporer's New Clothes" is a well done romance. It beguiles the mind of the audience. One can become lost in the reality of the era. He paranoia involved in Napolean's being is revealed in his character performance as well as this unusual story line. There is a very revealing scene toward the end of the picture in which he is thrust into a psychiatric "prison" and realizes his fate. The empathy that is developed by those surrounding him is remarkable. Cinematography is adequate, but it is not spectacular. The acting is superb. Costuming and set design is well done. It is a film that is definitely worth viewing. I give it a 7 out of 10. It quietly sipped by me when in the theaters, but is now available on DVD.

This film was a joy to watch. No deep meaning is to be had here, no lesson to be learned, just a wonderfully entertaining film. The acting is great and it is easy to get lost in the story. Ian Holm is wonderful as always. If you are just looking for a fun movie to watch this one is a great choice.

This gem of a film deserved a far wider release than it got --shame on Paramount for not daring to place this gem in theatres. In a year where "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" occupied some smalltheatres for months, I had to wait until October to see "TheEmperor's New Clothes," a far better movie and not at all limited toart-house appeal, as the studio seemed to think.Sir Ian Holm is brilliant, affecting, and engaging in his third turn asthe diminutive Emperor, and relative newcomer Iben Hjejle is aperfect foil as the sweet yet tough-skinned "Pumpkin." But whatmakes this film is not so much its wonderful cast and perfectperiod settings, it's the visual magic of Alan Taylor, who opens andcloses the film with the candlelit wonder of an antique MagicLantern. In that nineteenth-century version of visual narrative, greatmen rose from humble origins to "GLOIRE" in a few hand-paintedframes -- only, as Holm's Napoleon insists, "that's not how itended." It would be a crime to reveal how this film ends, but it'show it unfolds which makes it shine -- what, after all, is anEmperor? Is he a suit of clothes? An attitude? A pose? Holm'sdouble role as the emperor's doppelganger shines a new, comic,yet serious light into this more than twice-told tale.