Napoleon

Ridley Scott's Napoleon is a high-budget cinematic exercise in "Whatever, man, that'll do." The film, both in terms of what it presents and how it presents, reeks of hollowness. Characters are shadows(not defined enough to even be considered parodies or mockeries of their real-life counterparts as some people like to see them), story is a shadow of a proper story( at times feeling as if written by A. I), atmosphere, with the exception of some of the battle scenes and the Russian segment, sterile and practically non existent(disasterous for Scott who is known to be one of the greatest world builders in history of the artform). Stuff just happens in the film. No significance or weight to anything or anybody... Sure, it's not all bad. The classic Ridley Scott elements are here - battles are engaging, the costumes and set designs very well-done. Something he can't help but always be good at.

Overall, Ridley Scott's Napoleon feels like a simulacrum, a reduced copy of a real film, where, it seems, all life is sucked out . If I had more reverence towards the post-Gladiator Ridley Scott, I'd, perhaps, think of the film as some kind of metajoke, a self-aware self-parody, but, frankly, I think it's just a matter of the filmmaker not caring much. Just another day at work for Ridley, gotta keep working, do one thing, move on to the next one immediately, have fun, try things out, don't overthink it - this seems to be the way to go for the good ol' Ridley these days. Can't blame him, he's 85, for Christ's sake, but the movie's not good, kind of proto A. I-produced entertainment.

There's so much available content to tell this story. Why the hell was it a 2.5 hour film rather than the multi part limited series it deserves to be? The film has over 20 years of history to cover but includes so many huge time skips that you can't help feeling that you're missing out on a huge amount. This should have been a series and given the writers and the actors the time they deserved to tell the story properly but instead we get something that seems rushed and has huge gaps in time where things are shunted forward just se we can reach the end of the story before time runs out. The acting is above par (Despite Phoenix mumbling through some scenes) and the action sequences are excellent but there is just a feeling that it could have been so much more.

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.

This should have been called "Napoleon and Josephine" because, frankly, there's too much of Josephine in it, and not nearly enough of the brilliance and personality of Bonaparte. The historical inaccuracies are manifold. I read that director Scott says that "If you weren't there then you can **** off". Well I was not there, but the erroneous simplification of one of history's greatest characters shows Scott wasn't there either. The battle scenes are gaining accolades, but even they shouldn't. Wrong and over simplified. If you are going to make a movie about Napoleon, his generalship should have taken centre-stage, not his domestic tussles with the Missus. A grand disappointment. An artilleryman, as Napoleon was, taking part in a cavalry charge? I don't think so! Oh, how I wish Kubrick had carried through to make his version. I give this six stars, mostly for having the courage to take on such a mighty story. Too bad it fell far short of its subject matter.

Ridley Scott's Napoleon is more hysterical than historical. History is like an uninvited guest in this movie. Stunning battle visuals don't make up for gross historical approximations.

If you want to watch a masterpiece then see Waterloo, with Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer. And if you want a historical enumeration then watch the Napoleon series with Christian Clavier, Isabella Rossalini, John Malkovich and Gerard Depardieu.

This movie was made for Apple streaming. Then they made a butchered version for cinema to be able to compete for the Oscars. The original Apple streaming version will be at least 2 hours longer. This cut version for cinema is somewhat rushed, disjointed and, as a result, confusing.

We never really learn why Napoleon was so powerful and won the admiration of so many. Here it's almost as if he stumbles through greatness. He was a great politician in reality, over here he's shown as a childish brute. The focus was more on set pieces and his relationship with Josephine.

Joaquin Phoenix can play odd or troubled characters well. Here he barely succeeds in persuading the viewers that he is Napoleon. He's too old for this role (Napoleon was 24 when Marie Antoinette was guillotined) and made the character seem bizarre than a charismatic leader. Vanessa Kirby as Josephine gets more traction.

The cinematography by Dariusz Wolski is of a very high order. The battle scenes are filmed well. Ridley Scott knows how to make action scenes slick and impressive. But overall it's a below average movie. Napoleon deserves better than this shambolic movie.