This is the second film in a year to toy with this idea, but while the British-made The Emperor's New Clothes plays it whimsically, this film plays it very straight, with verbose dialog and intertwined characters. (Well, it is a French film!) There are flashes of character-based humour, no doubt added by comedian-turned-director de Caunes, but the overall pretentiousness undermines a story that can never be proved or disproved. And does it matter anyway? Performances are good, especially Torreton's understated emperor and the intriguing, arrogant generals around him. Grant is left to play a smug weasel without much shading, and the women are one-dimensional but rather interesting--with Zylberstein's pragmatically cynical Frenchwoman in vivid contrast to Hewlett's idealistic English rose. De Caunes films it beautifully, capturing the isolation of a South Atlantic island (it was filmed in South Africa), although the editing feels harsh, oddly missing key moments and leaving us slightly off balance as a result. This is a battle of wits between Napoleon and Lowe, the last battle in the emperor's great career. The mystery is intriguing, but the film never sorts fact from fiction, adding romantic complications that don't draw us in and filling scenes with wordy but irrelevant nonsense. And without either the courage of its convictions or a sense of free-wheeling fantasy, the film feels strangely lifeless, piquing our interest but never taking us anywhere.