Spectacle, but not much else Ambition, a central problem for the real Napoleon, proves the doom of this movie. I really enjoyed Kirby as the discarded Josephine. She's brilliant. But the rest of the movie proved rather feckless. When you try to distill a highly consequential life into less than three hours, you're setting yourself up for failure. Yes, even Ridley Scott couldn't pull that off. Gladiator flows quite well, but Napoleon simply failed. Pacing is horribly bad in this movie, and the performances are disappointing overall. Kirby couldn't make this movie stand up by herself. The movie has to skip over much significance in Napoleon's life, which makes it feel rather empty through the middle 90 minutes. Focusing on a short time period, like Lincoln did with DD Lewis doing so great in the title role, probably would've been fine for Napoleon. A movie just about his first exile, Waterloo, then St. Helena for two and a half hours would've likely been great. But Sir Ridley wanted nearly a third of a century covered. Ambition has ruined many men and movies. Sadly, that horribly trick trait strikes again.