Paul Huard

Visually lush, with some of the best battle sequences I’ve ever seen on film. But Joaquin Phoenix misses the boat, portraying Napoleon as an indifferent military man totally lacking the charisma that gained the emperor the devotion of millions. See it as a matinee at a bargain price.

The film is a time machine that allows the viewer to travel back to a period when men were compelled — even eager — to fight for king and country. Then, they experienced the grim truth of The Great War. Powerful: I was moved to tears more than once by the comments of those soldiers, now long dead, who created through warfare the modern world.