The Emperor's New Clothes DVD | Classic Animated Fairy Tale Movie | Perfect for Family Movie Nights & Children's Storytime

I found this a delightful movie and am sorry it had such a limited theatrical release (it only played one week in Austin and I was not able to see it at that time). Thanks be for the DVD, which is crystal clear and in widescreen, although there are no extras. I think your reaction to it might depend on your familiarity with (or sympathy to) Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French. Those more knowledgeable about his life and career will find more nuances to Ian Holm's characterization and more depth in the story. Others may find this film too slow or mystifying. For my part, and as an admitted sympathetic Bonapartist -- Napoleon was a great man in every sense of the word, with great failings as well as great skills and sometimes even virtues -- this film grows on me with every viewing and I keep finding more little gems of detail to treasure.It's not the ha-ha comedy I initially expected, and perhaps the script could have used a few more humorous scenes, given the potential in the subject matter, but it would not be fair to criticize the movie for not being something it did not set out to be. Napoleon's chance visit to the battlefield of Waterloo, now catering to tourists, is comical in a typically low-key way. The pacing may be too leisurely to some, but this says more about our Hollywood-shaped sensibilities than what director Alan Taylor had in mind. This is not a cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers movie. It's a gentle slice of whimsy and romance made for an audience that can appreciate a movie with no car crashes, machine guns, or bimbos.The central theme is transformation: can a man remake himself utterly, and in so doing, gain a second chance at happiness? Napoleon the Emperor (a masterful performance by Holm, who is a passable lookalike to the genuine article) begins this movie a very different man than who we see at the end, when Napoleon the Greengrocer "surrenders" at last to an opponent that has bested him -- the kind and good woman who prefers the reality of petit bourgeois Eugene Lenormand to the phantom of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is a difficult journey for Napoleon/Eugene to make, and we follow the Emperor's struggle to tame his old ambitions and talents, occasionally harnessing them for a good cause -- his mustering and "battle orders" to the assembled fruit peddlers is a masterful sequence, the old Napoleon of Marengo and Austerlitz, history's greatest soldier, rising one last time to lead his forces to a brilliant victory. But finally, when he is tricked by an adversary into entering a madhouse, he is confronted with the monstrous reality of what he was -- a madman, a creature fit only to be locked up, even as Napoleon himself was caged on an island prison. It is the moment of realization for Napoleon/Eugene, when he recognizes that the desire to be a Napoleon is itself an act of lunacy. Confronted by the enormity of who he once was but need no longer be, he is at last able to make the break and cross over into a new life. He has no throne, but he is now content to rule a smaller kingdom, one with a joy and richness such as he could have never before attained. A thoroughly satisfying ending. L'Empereur est mort; vive l'Empereur!