Yes, that's a real quote from Joaquin Phoenix to Ridley Scott right before they started filming. I love Joaquin Phoenix, but you can really tell that he doesn't "get" the character of Napoleon that he's trying to play. I honestly don't know if Phoenix even has that kind of charisma and confidence within him, but then again I don't know anything about Napoleon either. But it was just uncomfortable watching him stumble his way through the movie, often just looking clueless.
The other problem with the movie is it's just plain dull and uninteresting. It really does feel like a "highlights" movie. For an almost 3-hour film, it has surprisingly little dialogue. The dialogue that's there isn't' that illuminating or interesting. I normally like politics and romance (which is the bulk of this story), but I would have loved to see more military and war stuff in a movie like this. Isn't Napoleon supposed to be a brilliant war leader? There's like none of that here. Except "oh we'll do a sneak attack in the night."
The cinematography was also really surprisingly dull. It looked super digital. The colors were so bland and washed out.
Vanessa Kirby is really the best thing about the movie. And also the first battle taking over that fort, which was admittedly pretty epic. I have never seen such a thing happen to a horse in a movie, and it was wonderfully horrifying.
I fully blame Ridley Scott for this dud. Hopefully Spielberg's Kubrick miniseries about Napoleon will be much better.
