Napoleon (2023)

• Year: 2023
• Released: 22 Nov 2023
• Country: United States, United Kingdom
• Adwords: 7 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13287846/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/napoleon
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p, 2160p
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Action, Adventure, Biography
• Runtime: 158 min
• Writer: David Scarpa
• Director: Ridley Scott
• Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim
• Keywords: empire, france, biography, napoleon bonaparte, based on true story, napoleonic wars,

6.5/10

Napoleon Storyline

Napoleon is a spectacle-filled action epic that details the checkered rise and fall of the iconic French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Oscar®-winner Joaquin Phoenix. Against a stunning backdrop of large-scale filmmaking orchestrated by legendary director Ridley Scott, the film captures Bonaparte’s relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his one true love, Josephine, showcasing his visionary military and political tactics against some of the most dynamic practical battle sequences ever filmed.—Sony Pictures

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Napoleon Movie Reviews

A few words of warning for those with high expectations…

A word of warning for those expecting another Gladiator or non stop action spectacle. It is not. Truly not…

The bad: director Ridley Scott knows how to make action scenes look slick and impressive (and he does an excellent job again), but he is also known for being quite average at making a drama. And this movie tries (and partly fails) to combine action and drama and somehow ends up being neither one. THAT is one of the reasons I’ll only rate it with 6 stars.

More bad: this story has a weak “dramatic” middle (love story) part, which is kinda tedious. And that brings me to a storyline complaint, namely that this story is all over the place. They cram SO much events and history and different characters from different time periods into this one movie that it kinda confused and numbed me down, instead of thrilling me, as an epic should do.

This movie was made for Apple streaming (release date january 2024) in the first place, but they made a shorter (butchered) version for the cinemas in order to be able to compete for the Oscars, which demands that a movie must have run in the cinemas for a couple of weeks. No cinema version, no Oscars.

The original Apple streaming version lasted some 2 hours longer. Nobody is gonna sit in the cinema for over 4 hours, hence they cut this movie up and now it feels somewhat rushed, confusing and disjointed at certain moments.

Not any good then? Joaquin Phoenix is the one redeeming feature. He nails it.. He makes Napoleon look like a complete joke of a man and I love Joaquin Phoenix’ performance, but that unfortunately didnt compensate for the other actors being just about average and with little actor’s chemistry between them.

I had been warned beforehand by friends that this wasnt the spectacle or epic drama they were hoping for and unfortunately they were right. Certainly not a terrible movie, but one that is just about average.

Thank you for reading my 2100 th review on Imdb.

An interesting failure

Ridley Scott directed one of the best movies ever made set during the Napoleonic Wars: unfortunately, that movie is not Napoleon but his cinematic debut, The Duellists, forty years ago.

Unsurprisingly, The Duellists had a strong source material (it was based on a novel by Joseph Conrad which it often followed almost verbatim), while Napoleon has an uneven screenplay by David Scarpa.

Even past the age of eighty Sir Ridley can still shoot pretty and energetic pictures but his hits and misses depend on the scripts he picks, and he hasn’t always shown the best discernment.

The elephant in the room is the large amount of historical inaccuracies. Even as a history buff I can forgive many of those: cutting or simplifying events for the sake of narrative, or even some overdramatization like the meeting between Napoleon and Wellington (it never happened) or Napoleon being present at Marie Antoinette’s execution (he wasn’t); however, stuff like Napoleon charging with his troops at Waterloo is absolute cringe, a kid’s (or a lout’s) idea of history.

Still, the big problems here are characterization and pacing.

The movie is a demythologization (some would say emasculation) of Napoleon. If you want to take this route then fair enough, but the character here fails to be consistent. I can buy a Napoleon who is an egomaniac and an overrated tactician (like in Tolstoy’s War and Peace). I do not buy one who is an anxious, insecure, uncharismatic cold fish but also a stern tactical genius and an effective leader of men, one who flees from Egypt because Josephine is unfaithful but is also an unflappable military mastermind.

Phoenix is a great actor and does what he can but the two sides of the character just don’t gel with each other. You can’t have parodic moments like Napoleon rolling down the stairs during his coup against the Directory, despondently pouting as he waits for the rain to stop at Waterloo or awkwardly climbing on a box to stand face to face with a pharaoh’s mummy (with his diminutive stature becoming a not-too-subtle metaphor of his overall mediocrity)… AND THEN have him magnetically charm the French soldiers into obedience after the Elba. This gawky Napoleon would have been shot to pieces there.

The other problem is pacing. A single movie about the whole life of Napoleon is in itself absurd, like making “a movie about World War 2”. There is material in Napoleon’s life for a VERY dense miniseries (which Steven Spielberg is reportedly planning).

Napoleon’s first wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) plays a huge role here but I would argue the movie has either too little or way too much of her. This needed to be either focused mostly on Napoleon’s personal life or to drastically reduce the (fairly repetitive after a while) moments where Napoleon is obsessed with his wife.

As it is now, it tries to tell – but rushes through – twenty very eventful years of European history and yet devotes more time to Napoleon visiting Josephine after their divorce than to his Russian campaign.

It’s like making a D-Day movie which keeps cutting back and forth from the Normandy landings to Hitler spending time with Eva Braun. You can have either The Longest Day or Der Untergang, not both.

Still, it’s not worthless. There are some interesting moments and set-pieces and, while Phoenix is saddled with a contradictory character, Kirby at least is excellent.

6/10.

My biggest disappointment this year

Ridley Scott’s NAPOLEON feels like the highlight reel of a lengthy miniseries. Considering there’s a 4-hour cut of this film, that explains it all.

NAPOLEON is certainly good spectacle. The battle scenes are breathtaking. Unfortunately, it’s also shallow. I know Scott has sneered at viewers criticizing the historical inaccuracies in the film, but I’m more bothered by a total lack of interesting character psychology or even coherent storytelling. Characters pop in and out, leaving little impression in their brief scenes. Relationships between characters are barely fleshed out, including that of Napoleon and Josephine, which dominates the running time. Also, potentially unpopular opinion, I thought Joaquin Phoenix’s performance was a one-note bore.

Perhaps the 4-hour version is a richer piece of work. As is, NAPOLEON is a let down, especially after Scott’s brilliant 2021 period piece THE LAST DUEL, which had all the drama and psychological depth this movie lacked.