Napoleon

Back in 2005 Ridley Scott's 144 minute version of 'Kingdom of Heaven' premiered in theatres to somewhat mixed reviews. A couple of years later the vastly superior 190 minute director's cut version finally arrived, with the general consensus that the final product was a masterclass in storytelling, directing, acting and cinematography. - without doubt the best motion picture ever made about the crusades.

Almost 20 years later we are yet again treated with a compiled highlight reel of a Ridley Scott movie in the theatre, rather than a full-fledged historical epic, since it has already become official that 'Napoleon' will be released later on streaming with its entire runtime of almost four hours, which clearly is needed to flesh out many parts of the movie and fill in the emotional and historical blanks, because this - somewhat butchered cut - moves in a breakneck speed and feels too rushed.

Whereas the underappreciated 1970 movie 'Waterloo' starring Rod Steiger as Napoleon Bonaparte, featuring thousands of extras, portrayed events only during the 100 days campaign in 1815, Scott's 'Napoleon' takes us through decades of various major events and battles beginning with the siege of Toulon in 1793. In this version we never really learn why Napoleon was so powerful. Why did he win the admiration of so many? It's almost as if he stumbles through greatness. He was a great politician in real life, but here he is portrayed as a childish brute? It felt like the focus was more on setpieces and his troubled relationship with Josephine, than on him as a ruthless and cunning emperor, and in the theatre cut there really isn't a lot of places where Joaquin Phoenix truly shines as an Oscar contender. Maybe the director's cut will remedy that.

In spite of its shortcomings (no pun intended) 'Napoleon' is still one of the best movies I have seen this year, but I am baffled. Because if people can sit through 3+ hour box office hits like 'Avengers Endgame', 'Avatar 2' and 'Oppenheimer' - why the need to release just a very extended trailer of 'Napoleon' in the theatre, especially when everyone know that they can just wait a couple of months for it to arrive on streaming in its entirety? An attempt by Apple at a cash grab? "You need a subscription to our streaming service to watch the whole thing"?

With that being said, I do predict some Oscar nominations here. Ridley Scott yet again proves why he is one of the best filmmakers out there. But a word of caution: If you only plan to see this once, you might consider waiting for the director's cut.

I will not get in to the historical inaccuracies, as in a lot of historical movies history is adapted for dramatic purposes. It is Hollywood after all and especially for big budget movies the goal is to make a lot of money. Beautiful Trailer.

My main criticism is the portrayal of Napoleon. Of course all who knew him are long gone and many accounts are subjective, so we have to make do with that information.

But I can not imagine that a man who ends up on top after all the chaos of the French Revolution, whose generals and soldiers stay loyal to him after all the battles and blood, wasn't an enormous charismatic man.

And that's where the film completely fails for me. You can hate him, admire him, love him, belittle him as Wellington, but the film makes him, and his relationship with Josephine, uninteresting and dull, and as the title is Napoleon, that was my feeling leaving the cinema. A bit more effort of Mr Scott and Mr. Phoenix to know the character and history would probably have added value.

History is an undesired guest taking the backseat in Mr Scott's sprawling epic on Napoleon's life.

Mr Scott's craftsmanship is such that it's undoubtedly able to offer the viewer some unique experiences. But stunning battle visuals and great performances by the lead actors don't make up for gross historical approximation.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Mr Scott knows his history and, if he didn't, he surely has a fat staff of assistants to tell it to him; so what he does here (as he did already in Gladiator) is a very deliberate and blatant choice to bend historical reality to the purposes of his own art, which looks like an act of unforgivable artistic hubris.

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.