The cannonball run

French leader biopic is hardly revolutionary, but it sure is fast.

NAPOLEON

Directed by Ridley Scott

Mon Dieu, doesn't time fly when you're having fun? That's whether you're destroying the Holy M Roman Empire, redrawing the borders of Europe, firing cannons at Egyptian pyramids, razing Moscow or drowning entire armies in frozen lakes.

Or indeed, finding yourself in a very needy thrall to a woman, who, despite being an aristocrat who has lost hubby number one to the guillotine, likes the cut of your low-born Corsican jib.

So, it is with Napoleon. It's a gallop through the life of the French military genius and role model for later European genocidal maniacs, as well as a quick march through Napoleon's passionate relationship with Joséphine de Beauharnais.