Napoleon was written by David Scarpa, directed by Ridley Scott, and stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular Emperor of France. I’m a bit of a history buff and one of my big projects at the end of high school was to do a comprehensive report about Napoleon Bonaparte so I was very excited to see what his story would look like on the big screen!
Director Ridley Scott has made some of my favourite movies of all time too including Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator but despite making those amazing movies, he’s made a lot of unremarkable movies too. Undeterred by a history of hit or miss movies for me, I was really excited to see what he and Joaquin Phoenix were going to put together here. The theatrical cut that I saw in IMAX was two hours and thirty-eight minutes long but there will also apparently be an extended cut released on Apple TV+ that is about four hours long.So is Napoleon a hit or a miss? Let’s discuss!
My Thoughts
One of the many things I learned about Napoleon when I did that project in school was just how many notable things he had done in his life. When I was given assignments in school I was really good at writing just enough to meet the requirements, but this was a rare project where I was struggling to cut down the details I was including to meet the length limits. I think this point is the most important thing to mention because this movie struggles mightily with what it included and what it removed.
Even if you’re not aware of all of the details about Napoleon, the movie glosses over so much that you feel like you’re missing pieces of the puzzle. It genuinely feels like massive chunks are just missing and so you don’t fully buy into what you see on screen. His ascent to the throne seems easy and lacks any real context or details about just how he managed such an amazing feat. These issues persist throughout the movie to the point where, when it ends, the viewer is left with such a limited understanding of Napoleon himself. You basically have a series of events strung together with no real meaningful insight to be gleaned from it.
Napoleon’s relationship with his wife Joséphine (played by Vanessa Kirby) is given most of the attention in the movie but the constant time spent with these two just didn’t feel very compelling to me and really dragged the movie’s pacing down.
On the note of Vanessa Kirby, she and Joaquin Phoenix do well enough in their roles but neither the performances nor the writing made me feel invested in them. I don’t have to like characters but I need to at least be interested in them for a movie that spends so much time on their relationship to really work. I say all of this too as a viewer that was knowledgeable and interested in these people before the movie started. I would only guess that if you go in not knowing anything that you’ll find it even less engaging than I did.
One of the genuine positives was the production value. The costumes, sets, and locations all looked great and deserve a lot of praise. A particular standout was the battle sequences in the movie too. These looked and sounded absolutely amazing. Because you have such talented people working here, the camera is able to show us what is happening clearly instead of quick and chaotic cuts that you see in a lot of other movies. Another thing I hope to see in the four hour version would be more of these sequences. There really is only one scene where Napoleon’s tactical brilliance on the battlefield was showcased which left me feeling underwhelmed. Napoleon’s leadership during these battles was such a key to his story and success that with seeing so little of it I didn’t feel the movie gave the viewer that understanding.
The depiction of Napoleon here is definitely interesting and plays really funny in some moments. This has been the subject of some discussion online, but I definitely believe that it was intentional. It mostly worked for me, but the movie didn’t really strike a consistent tone either. It’s not that these odd characteristics are untrue, it’s just that absent of so many other details, you don’t really understand how this little weird guy is so loved in his country and successful in what he does.
Lastly, I want to make one thing clear with how I approach watching a movie. I don’t go into a movie with an expectation of what I want or even really suspect it will be. Oftentimes I find that people will go to see movies and if they’re not what they expected or wanted, they will feel disappointed even if what they saw was really good.I didn’t want Napoleon to be anything in particular. I would’ve been good with an epic film that focused primarily on his military accomplishments and I would’ve enjoyed a movie that dove deeper into his relationship with Joséphine if it was done in a more compelling way. This movie just had so much to do and I don’t think it’s possible with a two hour and thirty eight minute runtime.
Verdict
Unfortunately, I can’t recommend that you go out and see this one. There really are some great aspects of this movie that I think are worth watching, but there just isn’t enough here to make you feel satisfied in the end.
I sincerely hope that the extended version to come fixes a lot of the issues I had with this movie. I think it was a near impossible task to try and condense the story of Napoleon into a single film and allow it to feel truly fulfilling. Perhaps the four hour cut will fare better in this regard, but beyond the spectacular battle sequences, what I saw here doesn’t give me much hope for it either.
Adriana Wiszniewska