Let’s get one thing straight: some folks think using ChatGPT to help write film reviews is cheating. To them I say—if you’ve ever Googled a director’s filmography or looked up a release date, congratulations, you’ve already relied on other people’s notes. ChatGPT just does that legwork faster and organizes it better.
Personally, I don’t have time to write reviews from scratch every time. I’ve got ideas, opinions, and plenty of insights—but my grammar isn’t perfect, and my style sometimes limps. ChatGPT sharpens the writing and saves me hours. The key, though, is not to let it write the review for you. You stay in the driver’s seat.
1. Don’t Ask ChatGPT to “Write a Review” Blindly
The biggest mistake you can make is typing “Write a review of [movie title]” and hoping for gold. What you’ll get is a generic, soulless blurb that reads like a press release crossed with a book report. You want it to be your review, not ChatGPT’s.
2. You’re the Critic—ChatGPT’s Your Editor
Think of Chat as your assistant editor, not your ghostwriter. The best process I’ve found is this: you write the notes, Chat tightens the bolts. Your insights shape the review—it’s just there to polish.
3. Avoid Long-Winded Chat “Discussions”
Now, I’ve tried the back-and-forth chat method—you know, talking to Chat like it’s your film professor. That can be tempting, but it rarely ends well. The problem? ChatGPT tends to forget earlier points as the conversation gets longer. I once spent over an hour going in circles, asking for rewrites and reminding it of points I’d made ten minutes earlier.
Better approach? Give it your notes in one go. Then ask it to turn that into a coherent review. Fast. Clear. Done.
4. Example: How I Did The Emperor’s New Clothes
Here’s what I told ChatGPT:
My raw notes
I rate it a solid 7 out of 10. It’s a drama with comic elements. I wondered why historically the British didn’t just execute Napoleon. Maybe execution of royalty was frowned on, or maybe it would have rallied his supporters. Anyway this is believable historical fiction. Napoleon is portrayed as narcissistic and deluded but still commanding loyalty. The escape plan—swapping places with a French deckhand named Eugene Lenormand—is crazy but fun. Eugene flips the plan by refusing to switch back, enjoying life as the fake emperor.Napoleon thinks he can retake power just by showing up, but the ship drops him off in Belgium instead. He has to trek to Paris, meets a loyalist, then finds his contact there—Truchaut—has died. Napoleon stays with Truchaut’s widow, Pumpkin (great name), who is poor and raising an orphan. Napoleon helps revive her failing melon business, showing he has organizing skills that aren’t just about war.
The final twist: Pumpkin’s old flame Dr. Lambert exposes Napoleon by luring him to a mental institution full of men who think they are Napoleon. That shock, along with Pumpkin’s cutting line about the real Napoleon’s legacy of death, gives him the epiphany that maybe peace and obscurity aren’t so bad.
Criticism: the delusion gag goes on a bit too long, but it builds to a satisfying turn. It’s a sweet ending. Not groundbreaking, but clever.
Then I told Chat:
“Take these notes and turn them into a review. Keep my point of view. Improve grammar and style, but keep the tone critical and a little playful.”
And here’s what ChatGPT delivered:
The Emperor’s New Clothes (2001): A Modest Tyrant in Tailor-Made Fiction
Rating: 7/10
What if Napoleon escaped exile, made it back to Paris, and nobody cared? That’s the premise—both comic and melancholy—behind The Emperor’s New Clothes, a clever twist on historical fiction that asks what becomes of greatness when nobody’s looking.
Directed by Alan Taylor and based on Simon Leys’ satirical novel The Death of Napoleon, the film gives us a version of the famous exile on Saint Helena where the former emperor (played with relish by Ian Holm) engineers a body-swap escape plan involving a hapless French deckhand, Eugene Lenormand. In theory, Eugene will play Napoleon long enough to switch back after the real emperor arrives triumphantly in Paris. But in classic farce fashion, the plan doesn’t just go off the rails—it reroutes the entire train.
The film straddles the line between drama and comedy, never veering too far into slapstick but never fully shaking the absurdity of its premise. Ian Holm gives a wonderfully nuanced performance—at once imperious, deluded, and oddly sympathetic. His Napoleon is still drunk on his past glory, oblivious to the fact that Europe has largely moved on. He’s followed by loyalists who remain under his spell and finds his dreams crumbling faster than he can say l'état, c'est moi.
One of the film’s strongest elements is its depiction of Napoleon’s inflated self-image colliding with a world no longer interested in worshipping him. He imagines crowds lining up to welcome him back, only to find himself stuck selling melons alongside a woman named Pumpkin (Iben Hjejle), who is neither royal nor intimidated. She’s the heart of the film—grounded, kind, and very much not buying what Napoleon is selling.
Their romance develops slowly and convincingly, and becomes the emotional engine of the film. The melon business subplot, while initially played for laughs, becomes a strangely touching metaphor: Napoleon, once orchestrator of battles, now finds purpose organizing fruit logistics. It’s ridiculous, but it works—because it reveals something more likable about the man behind the myth.
Still, the film isn’t without its pacing issues. Napoleon’s refusal to accept his defeat goes on a bit too long. The joke—while sharp—is stretched thinner than a Parisian crêpe by the final act. Fortunately, it builds toward a poignant epiphany: confronted with a madhouse full of delusional Napoleons and a bitter truth from Pumpkin, the emperor finally lets go of his grandeur. It's a fitting conclusion to a character who needed, more than anything, to be dethroned in his own mind.
A historical footnote worth pondering: why didn’t the British just execute Napoleon? The film doesn’t dwell on this, but it lingers as subtext. Execution may have risked martyrdom, while exile made him yesterday’s news. And as The Emperor’s New Clothes shows, sometimes history punishes best by forgetting.
The movie’s final twist—Napoleon quietly living out his days as Eugene—turns this from mere revisionist history into something richer: a meditation on identity, legacy, and the bittersweet freedom of anonymity.
Bottom line: This is believable historical fiction with just enough absurdity to make it intriguing. Think of it as Being Napoleon Malkovich—a portrait of a man who loses the world and gains a woman, a melon cart, and maybe, finally, his soul.
Final Thoughts
Using ChatGPT to write film reviews doesn’t mean surrendering your voice. It means focusing your energy on your ideas—and letting Chat do the heavy lifting with structure, grammar, and polish.
It’s not cheating. It’s collaborating—with a bot that never takes coffee breaks and doesn’t demand co-author credit.
Just don’t let it pick the movie.