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Ridley Scott’s famous war film “Napoleon (拿破仑)” is a series of successful battles looking for a better movie to connect them. Once again, Scott’s craftsmanship (技艺) is on show here, but it’s in service of a deeply shallow screenplay. A great actor is reduced to a ghostly presence in the middle of the movie, and his partner, the character who needs to give the film a beating heart, comes off as flat and hollow.

One of the problems is that the film script tries to put a lot of life into the running time of a single film. Naturally, it opens during the French Revolution, as Napoleon climbs up the political ladder of France with his war talents above all else.

Another part of the problem is that Kirby, the leading actress never really understands what to play with Josephine, a mysterious celebrity (名人) who becomes too much of a mirror for Napoleon. She couldn’t give Napoleon a son, which resulted in their break-up.

Was Napoleon the kind of world leader whose own unsafety resulted in killings we have seen in history? That’s here in a few places, but Scott is uninterested in making any sort of statement about Napoleon or men like him. A very just-the-facts approach of “Napoleon” is incredibly disappointing for a filmmaker who usually finds so much depth in the stories he tells. Worst of all, by the time “Napoleon” gets to Waterloo, we don’t know much more about the main character than we did when we came in. That’s a problem.

Having said that, the wonderful war scenes in “Napoleon” may be enough to prove its existence for fans of historical war films. Whether its bloodied bodies breaking through ice or waves of soldiers rushing into battle, “Napoleon” has some fantastic battle scenes. Maybe the point is that Napoleon Bonaparte was only truly alive when surrounded by so much death.