THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES
A funny, thoughtful Napoleon comedy for teenagers and adults.
Should You Watch It?
This is a very entertaining diversion built around an excellent performance by Ian Holm. The comedy is inventive, the premise is unusual, and Napoleon’s grand ambitions create plenty of room for humor. More importantly, the film eventually examines the human cost of personal triumph when conquest leaves ordinary people suffering.
The movie’s central idea is also its main weakness. Its Romantic worldview implies that Napoleon might have become a nice man if he had lived in a different environment. Scripture offers a darker view of the human heart. The film also includes body humor, implied sexuality, alcohol use, and some mild immorality played for comedy.
If you’re choosing for teenagers or adults who can exercise discernment about those elements, this is worth seeing; for younger children, choose something else.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESNapoleon has been imprisoned on St. Helena, but he has a plan. With the help of Eugene, a sailor who looks exactly like him, the emperor hopes to escape, return to France, rally the people, and reclaim power.
The plan goes awry almost immediately. Traveling under an assumed identity, Napoleon must find his way across Europe and confront a life very different from the one he expected. Along the way, he becomes involved with a struggling widow and her melon farm.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means this is a highly entertaining film with enough wit and heart to overcome its imperfections.
The comedy is inventive, and the film finds memorable humor in Napoleon’s attempt to apply military strategy to ordinary problems. The marketing plan for the melon farmers is especially entertaining. Ian Holm gives an excellent performance, playing both Napoleon and Eugene. The movie also gives its central character a meaningful journey as he discovers the dark side of his personal triumphs.
Its worldview and content concerns keep it from being suitable for every family, but as a comedy, it succeeds.
The Worldview
The film presents a Romantic worldview: people may be good or bad depending largely on their environment. That idea allows the story to imagine that Napoleon, placed in different circumstances, might have become a nice man. The movie also suggests that love can help someone see beyond power and position.
The film does offer meaningful moral insight. Napoleon becomes disconnected from his country and subjects through delusions of grandeur. While he was trying to save Europe, his own people suffered and eventually despised him. The story recognizes that personal triumph can have a dark side, and that love can expose a person’s true condition.
But the movie’s central error is its view of human nature. According to the review, the realistic conclusion would involve a prideful man continuing to conquer those around him and possibly destroying himself. The biblical view is that people are not simply good or bad because of their environment. We are born with deceitful and corrupt hearts, and we need new birth, godly repentance, sanctification by the Holy Spirit, and restitution.
The film longs for redemption through love and changed circumstances. Scripture points us deeper: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Romantic worldview implies that, in another environment, Napoleon may have turned out to be a nice guy; man creates a merchandising/marketing plan for local melon farmers; some moral and redemptive elements; no foul language, but drunken man farts and back of man’s head and shoulders shown as he finishes urinating on a tree; some comical and other mild violence such as a couple of people slip on melon peels, man cuts hand on glass and a couple of dead men are shown lying in state; no sex scenes but implied fornication in scenes with couple lying dressed in bed and man reads sappy sensual passage from book (in text woman begs for “more”); upper male nudity in bath; alcohol use and drunkenness; no smoking; and miscellaneous immorality mostly played for comedy such as deception, cheating at checkers, stealing, and enraged man rips up books and destroys bookstore display.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Napoleon wants to return to power, but the film makes him face the suffering caused by his ambitions. How should success be measured when other people bear the cost?
Mark 8:36 · Philippians 2:3–4The movie suggests that a different environment might have made Napoleon a better man. What does Scripture say about the condition of the human heart?
Jeremiah 17:9 · Romans 3:23The film connects love with the possibility of change. What kind of change does the gospel require, and why is repentance more than simply feeling sorry?
John 3:3 · 2 Corinthians 7:10Napoleon is forced to consider whether his identity is found in power or in something deeper. Where should Christians ground their identity?
Galatians 2:20 · Colossians 3:3The Final Word
THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES is a funny, inventive comedy with an excellent Ian Holm performance and worthwhile reflections on pride, power, and the cost of conquest. Its Romantic view of human nature and some mild content call for discernment. For teenagers and adults, WORTH THE TRIP — TEENAGERS AND ADULTS.
