Napoleon -- Why I Dislike It -- An Honest Review
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2024
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Napoleon's charisma was like a blowtorch. Odd to choose an actor who depicts him as a depressed introvert.
yeah they dont even give the audience any idea WHY so many of his countrymen were so loyal to him
@@TrueMithrandir And why he is respected and sometimes adored in countries he fought against.
That's the biggest problem! Historical inaccuracy can sometimes be excused, but the movie doesn't seem to be about Napoleon at all.
It's not the actor's fault, the actor's only doing what the director asks him to.
wtf wasnt he like an miserable asshole, i thought that was the consensus
All of the French movie industry needs to produce a high budget 200+ million Euro miniseries on Napoleon as a polemic against Ridley Scott's biopic failure.
They already did. In 2002. It's OK.
its a lot better than this that for sure at least the battle scenes were much more accurate. and they also had the various other charcters such as fouche who appeared in this movie in litterally one scene and he was one of the most powerful and ruthless characters in france in the era.
@@MichalKaczorowski That is true and they did a good job, but Scott's film is such an insult. 2002 Napoleon could not capture the magnitude of the battles and sets because of its low budget. Since it's already been 20 years and I wish the French would revisit another series for a new generation that carried a high budget made entirely of a French cast and crew that could bury Scott's dumpster fire.
@@teztez9145 The thing is that in France itself, opinions about Napoleon are divided. While he is worshiped in Poland, for example, in France he is perceived differently depending on political views.
@@MichalKaczorowski Napoleon is still an icon of France. I can make the same case about many historic figures and political factions holding different perceptions. Officially the French government still honors him to this day.
You want to see a very good depiction of Napoleon in his later years? Watch Rod Steiger play him in Waterloo (1970). That was a great movie.
In France there was a mini serie (which probably has been subed in english) in the early 2000s. I think it was rather good if memory serves.
War and peace 1967 4 part mini series.
Nope, "Waterloo" wasn't a great movie. Only a (too) late historian epic spectacle with Rod Steiger not doing his best role there - according to Roger Ebert only 2 stars and far from being a great movie. Better see "War and Peace" instead. 😌
@@travisgray8376 War and Peace would have fit Scott's creative vision a lot better. The whole movie has that Russian tragedy aesthetic down pat, but it makes no sense for Napoleon or Napoleonic France.
yes,that's right!
One of the great Hollywood “What ifs…” for me is what if Stanley Kubrick had lived long enough to have made his Napoleon biopic.
He made "Barry Lyndon" instead. Much better use of his time imo...
It will be twenty years before anyone can again pitch a Napoleon movie to a hollywood studio. And thats probably why this film was made.
Apparently Spielberg was working on a Napoleon mini series that uses Stanley Kubrick's jinxed script that never got made. Well if this kills it again it truly shows how jinxed that script is lol.
@EagleLeader1 Was Kubrick planning to do Napoleon after Eyes Wide Shut? Too bad he suddenly died... Kinda makes you think, doesn't it?
@@benjamindover4337 no actually he was trying to make it in the 70's, then the MGM studio backed out of it. I think because Waterloo another Napoleon movie made no money so they lost confidence in anything on the subject.
@@benjamindover4337 stop
@@georgebrady5369 ridley scott has entered the chat
A 12 hour miniseries that actually treats the subject matter with the circumspection it deserves would have been great.
Its typical for Ridley scott, butchering history and pushing some ham handed message is pretty much the norm for him. Kingdom of Heaven was a perfect example of this, and this movie doesn't surprise me at all. When I saw the trailers I already figured that Josephine was going to figure prominently.
@@ktom5262 Technically it was a remake of The Fall of the Roman Empire. Watch it and tell me it isn't almost the same movie.
One thing you know you will be getting with a Ridley Scott historical movie is characters that will not in anyway reflect their times. He makes movies about crusaders and the characters could be 21 century New Yorkers or Londoners. He clear is not interested in history so I wish he would stop making history based films. He makes a movie about Napoleon with it seems the into to convince the audience that Napoleon is not interesting.
One day, a biopic of Ridley Scott should be made...by the French.
this lol.
I always thought that the life story of Napoleon would need to be told in three movie volumes (or a miniseries). The first to depict his drive as a young opportunistic man and leading an impossible campaign in Italy, the second being the expedition to Egypt and ending in disaster but closing on a bittersweet note of ending the Revolutionary Wars and becoming emperor, and the third showing the rise of the empire up until its decline and conclusion at Waterloo and St Helena. You can’t compact all that into just two and a half hours and expect it to make sense x.x
The director’s cut will 4.5 hours so watch that instead
@@aidanphillips6760 Okay. And if that turns into 4.5 more hours of garbage what else will you defend piss poor movie making with then?
@@sethwoll6240 it wasn't piss poor
A character hit piece. No idea why they made Napoleon so weak and pathetic. Can't shave without cutting himself.
Can't make it up the stairs without panting.
Sniffs a mummy and acts like a weirdo and looks surprised when the mummy's not alive. Throws food and tantrums and doesn't know how to speak. Often looks confused and terrified. They say he's a great man in the film but other than a few short scenes they don't show it. Instead they hyperfocus and embellish his inadequacies.
Little to no mention of the Napoleonic Code, how he altered all of history, no depiction of the fear monarchies had for him. No mention of the Spanish war which was really what wore his forces down for years and hurt him politically.
You get comedy, great cinematography, a cliff notes version of the revolution and his rise to power. No depth of detail in the military tactics and inventive techniques that propelled him but the film slows down and takes the time to have the audience laugh at a contrived bit about him being nervous about him having to have sex and needing more drinks. Which is fabricated.
It was visually good and interesting but it wasn't Napoleon it was someone else. First clue that I should have known is the casting of Phoenix who excels at playing weird losers- not at playing great men.
If Phoenix played George Washington he'd probably make him a bed wetter with a lisp and terrified of women.
And the way Marie Antoinette is presented is absurd - just for good measure.
the most outrageous part was they added in a scene where the french fired cannon on the pyramids as to show evil whitey and his barbarism. The fact is the battle took places many miles from the paramids and Napoleon actually brought alot of scholars and intellectuals with him to study egyptiology.
The Rosetta stone.
The movie seems to indicate Napoleon’s driving motivation was Josephine’s sn@tch.
I am a history professor and just saw the movie. I made a review on it as well if people want to know what was historically accurate in it and what was fiction.
I’m here to give your bad review a good review. There is a disease going around these days, to give bad movies good reviews. Thanks for the honesty. And no it’s not being negative it’s called, truth.
I guess the Arc de Triomphe was built to commemorate his defeats?
So we hear what a great military leader Napoleon was, but will didn't see it in this film, we were told it in the film but never was it. He shot at the pyramids, he shots at the ice, he fails in Russia and he losses at Waterloo. Waterloo is the only battle that we see the marching open field fighting that Napoleon was meant to be so good at, and he losses. This film needed to end when Napoleon becomes King because that seamed to be the peak for him because everything after that was downhill. For it to do the story of Napoleon justice it had to be at least two movies, so people had time to build him up in their head.
"Marching open field combat" or linear warfare in general. It is not only specific to Napoleon, but to the entire period including the preceding 18th century. Along with the tactical innovations of the corps system, column tactics, the manoeuvring of huge formations across miles of battlefield, the drama of maintaining lines of communication and supply, the timing of the arrival of reinforcements ... Instead, the film shows strange medieval-style hand-to-hand combat with cannons.
The depiction of the Battle of Austerlitz absolutely enraged me. One of the greatest and most decisive battles in the history of Europe, and Ridley Scott decides to be as historically inaccurate as possible with its depiction. The strategy and tactics of the battle were all wrong, as was the weather. There was no driving snow storm. It was a clear day with low-hanging mist that obscured much of the battlefield early on - playing right into Napoleon's plan. There was no snow on the ground and using ice to defeat the Allied army was not Napoleon's ultimate plan at all. That incident happened when the battle had already been won and only involved (at most) a dozen men being drowned.
Exactly. Let's not forget the scene of French soldiers shooting the pyramid, something that never happened, was debunked decades ago, and is included to further the 'Napoleon and the French were the Empire from Star Wars' narrative. I almost walked out at that point.
It made it more interesting. Also the. Oboe glory was fictional but still interesting
Movie
This is the reason why as a frenchman I will not watch Mr Scott's movie. No way.
You need to undestand that this country which has supposedly forgotten him still keeps his legacy in many parts of its fundation.
To illustrate note that in all official ceremonies the musical anthem played after la Marseillaise is the "marche de la garde consulaire à Marengo" in reference to the famous victory during the 2nd italian war campaign in year 1800
@@hugovictor3808And wasn't it Napoleon who came up with the Legion d'honneur?
also the poor duke of wellington was little more than a caricature, he was ridiculous in this film. unlike christopher plummer in waterloo who played the role to perfection.
I saw this today and could not believe how dull it was visually. Everything looked the same-every battle, every interior-Bland and flat from beginning to end. The visual design tells no story.
There is nothing epic in Phoenix’s performance. He is an awkward geek with a funny hat. Why does he wear the damn hat all the time? I was thinking of Henry Gibson playing Napoleon in an episode of ‘Bewitched’ with his hand in his jacket saying over and over “I am Napoleon” except that was meant as a joke. Kept waiting for Phoenix to say, “They’re coming to take me away Ha Ha” but that song was better written.
And speaking of the script (Spoiler alert) seconds after we watch Napoleon do a Michael Corleone from Godfather 3 the screen prints his supposed final words. Why not have them in the script coming out of the actor’s mouth?
Misconceived on every level; a wasted opportunity.
Ridley has no sense of scope without the use of CGI. Waterloo filmed in 1970 felt like...Waterloo in 1815.
A line of infantry with artillery behind them and then lines of tents. WTF was this supposed to be. The worst depiction of army deployment in this period ever!
I love big historical epics. Spartacus, War and Peace, Lawrence of Arabia, Barry Lyndon for example. Doesn't seem that this movie is in that category because of the disjointed 'greatest hits' aspect and lack of character depth. And at the risk of sounding shallow, I can't get past Joaquin's hairlip. Napoleon was a handsome guy without a facial flaw, why cast Phoenix in the role? We have many contemporary images of Bonaparte so we know exactly what his appearance was. And where is the legendary charisma? Hats off to Scott for using real people in the battle scenes though, instead of CGI.
Phoenix is also a bit old, at least for the 1790s-1805 parts of the movie. I think in general it would be best to get a younger actor for this, and then age him for the 1810s.
The telescopic sights!
Waterloo is my favorite depiction of Napoleon. Rod Steiger was incredible as Napoleon
thanks for this. I hope a number of people reading this are able to see it.
Even though Blade Runner is my favorite film of all time. I have to admit that Scott's vision of foreign cultures is outright offensive. And it is not just the whitewashing in movies like Exodus the caricature of italians in House of Gucci. Now we have to add the trashing of an historical figure like Napoleon. The film literally closes with a scorecard of Napoleon's total number of war casualties. I wonder why he doesn't make a movie about Henry VIII that ends with the legend: He executed more than 57.000 people, not in combat, but just because he was an insecure, blood thirsty prick. And like him, many other british royals and the english empire in general.The most fun I got from this movie was while using the google app to identify all the music bits from other sources (other better movies actually) that make up the films soundtrack, among them excerpts from Dario Martinelli's Pride and Prejudice, and even music from War an Peace, a tv miniseries from 2016!. That is so lame! Why.,Mr Scott? Just Why?
We need more contemporary reviews like this from you.. 😢 please 🙏
Their tagline "He came from nothing. He conquered everything." had nothing to do with the movie.
Phoenix sounded like he was struggling with constipation.
@PolynesianPrince, that actually would have been historically accurate 😊 Napoleon was fighting troubled intestines during the Battle of Waterloo. Some people claim that Napoleon wasn't beaten by Wellington and Blücher but by his indigestion 😉
When u cast Phoenix what do u really think u gonna get ...
We will just have to wait for the historically accurate Netflix or Disney Napoleon starring Lupita Nyong'o as Napoleon, Terry Crews as Josephine Cote de Pablo as the Duke of Wellington.
Instead of making it into a movie (You cant cover 20 years plus in 3 hours) they should make it into a HBO miniseries type of thing.
Dr Josh, on Thanksgiving I am giving you many thanks. Thanks for roasting this turkey perfectly and with all the trimmings. The one thing I would mention is Ridley's perpetuating the stupid lie that Nappy shot at the pyramid's and the sphinx.
They should have named this movie "Josephine and her man". The late 80s mini-series Napoleon and Josephine was an excellent story about their relationship. I think if that's what you are interested in, watch that. 90% of the people interested in seeing this movie, people wanting to know about the title character outside of his relationship, are going to be very disappointed. This is the new Studio edict. Dont make a movie your core audience wants to see, try to appeal to people who dont want to see it and lose everyone, then complain about how the audience let the studio down. They have completely forgot that they are selling a product and that we are consumers. Saving Private Ryan was not a movie that my wife and daughter wanted to see, but I sure did. Then after 3 weeks of outstanding reviews and buzz, now my wife and daughter wanted to see it, even though there is no love story or elevated female character (not every movie needs to be a girl power movie, most women would prefer an excellent movie over a pandering one). The buzz and reviews are killing this movie, so not only do my wife and daughter not want to see it still, I (the core audience) am not interested either. Stop trying to appeal to groups not interested and focus on making a great movie. Great movies expand the audience wanting to see it. Bad movies alienate the core.
Or "Josephine And Her Mouse."
Thanks for your honest review.
Would you say Phoenix is a better Cash compared to his performance as Bonaparte ?
I think if the movie skipped most of the Josephine stuff and put it in a R-rated HBO Max TV show instead,it would have been a better film and a series to look forward to. Do you agree ?
Excellent review. Would love to see a well made movie about Napoleon. Enjoyed the 1927 silent film by Abel Gance. Also Marlon Brando in Desirée (1954). Would love to hear/read your take on those films.
Marketing to women in this film. Women now hold more wealth than men in the US. Therefore, the over attention paid to the whole Josephine thing. If it's a high budget film, they are going to where the money is. A few battle scenes are thrown in to appeal to men. Bottom line: either make the movie about his relationship with Josephine, or make it about the Napoleonic era !
I am a woman and I was very disappointed I was expecting more history and more emotion and charisma to the characters. They market to women like we have no brain and even the "romance" part of this movie was lazy writing
Spent most of the movie wishing I was watching Master and Commander again because, y'know, "Boats"; the rest of it I was thinking of Love & Death and giggling to myself, "Wheat"
You're a slacker McFly. You remind me of your father, he was a slacker too. No McFly has ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley.
I’m dead and they’re talking about wheat
Phoenix was wooden and listless.
Vanessa Kirby was ridiculous as Josephine.
Oh the tedium.
True about Phoenix, but Vanessa can do no wrong.
I agree 100% with you. The film is a failure. Ridley is poor at depicting character’s psychology, and he left here far too much freedom to Phoenix. The result is incoherent and strangely unmoving. Looking at pretty costumes was the only thing positive out of this mess
I'm curious what it would look like if someone made a Ridley Scott movie the same way he made this movie.
I'm not going to watch it, I'm just going to assume it's in the same universe as Beau is Afraid where this time Beau had a nightmare about being a French military commander.
That's the best possible interpretation!
1:53 Is this still the story of Napoleon or is it a reenactment of Will Smith???
Based on the trailer, this is a film I won't be seeing. The moment Phoenix opened his mouth I burst out laughing! It was like watching Tony Curtis in a sword and sandal epic. Couldn't Scott have found a French actor for the role?
Nothing beats the Abel Gance epic for my money. Can't beat the triple screen effect for those battle scenes (pre-dating Cinerama by decades) or the colour tinting, which gives a nice emotional counterpoint (often seen in the silent era, so I've read, though I have yet to see in restoration).
Napoleon wasn’t French so why find a French actor. He wanted one of the best actors ever so he got him
@@LUCCI_25 I know he wasn't French! He spoke French, not Californian! And yes, Phoenix is a good actor, but maybe not well cast for the role of Napoleon.
Pity Abel Gance only filmed a sixth part of Napoleon. A masterpiece. The snowball fight at school, the drummer boy in the muddy battle… Amazing. I am not watching Ridley’s take.
"Take me to da caaastle" ( Tony ) Well they both had Brooklyn accents but somehow Tony's worked in an amusing sense with Janet Leigh and Barbara Rush Hollywood lovelies and Phoenix's definitely did not. Yes, Abel Gance's is spectacular.
Will you be watching the four hour version of this? In theory that could flesh out the characters better. I'm debating whether I want to or not. I wasn't bored and I thought the battle scenes were amazing but emotionally the movie is pretty empty.
All I learned from this movie is that they don't know how to make historical epics anymore.
I thought the movie failed to capture exactly why Napoleon was so great, and it actively seemed to hate him.
The movie starts off with him essentially becoming king not because of his skill or charisma but because of happenstance. And because others installed him in certain positions. The middle of the movie is all about his dysfunctional relationship and the many seemingly pointless, uninspiring and bleak battles he wages, all of which are portrayed as serving nothing but Napoleon's ego. The end of the movie shows a disgraceful tally of 'so-and-so many people killed' because of Napoleon.
So instead of focusing on his accomplishments (for good or bad), the movie makes him seem like a power-hungry, insecure and hypocritical child who caused the deaths of thousands. He loses all his power, charisma and vim because of Joséphine's death and gets mocked by the two dueling children on the island.
It's not anti-French per se, but it is very disrespectful toward Napoleon, arguably one of the most capable people who ever existed. That said, should we be surprised? I'm sure the director sees Napoleon as nothing more than a brutish tyrant. In lieu of tarnishing him with 'wokeness', he just chose to debase him. Horrible.
I hate it because they made a movie about Napoleon but didn't actually make a movie about Napoleon.
A non Napoleon Napoleon movie, with no apology.
For me there is very little to like about this film, the battles are terrible and grossly inaccurate (Baker Rifle with a scope strapped to it), Napoleon is not shown to be the master tactician he was, major historical events that affected future events are glossed over if not completely omitted, contemporary leaders figures are brushed aside and when they aren't are incorrectly portrayed (Wellington), he is portrayed as leading charges at Borodino and Waterloo, and he not shown to be feared and respected by his enemies. The pacing was off along with inconsistent time jumps. One positive is that General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas father of the author Alexandre Dumas is shown, sadly not mentioned by name so most will miss the reference.
My perspective as Hispanic is that This Napoleon is the British Idea of him, he was a human with a lot of defects but were was his charisma? ,also the movie never mentions the political scene all the reforms that he applied that gained him popularity, and a lot of etc as the consecuences in Americas History , cause of him all of Latam initiated Independence movements
R.S. made a Napoleonic masterpiece. It’s called The Duellists.
Yes, viewers should try that instead. Thank you
excellent review! "laughingly bad" sums it up perfectly...
Ridley Scott made a four hour version, the studio got him to cut it down to 2.5 hours, Are you going to watch the Spielberg HBO series of Napoleon? Are you going to try to watch the four hour version?
Why does he do that quiet mumbling speech ?
To "have boats" (meaning in the film's context to have naval supremacy) is the single most powerful weapon a great nation, specially an island nation, can have if it wants to win a great war. Control the sea, and you control trade routes to the whole world. The British Navy was absolutely key to eventually defeating Napoleon. For nearly 20 years he had the best army in Europe, and the best general staff (a lot of brilliant subordinates), and he was also a superb strategic and tactical commander who won a great majority of the battles he fought, but the British blockade slowly strangled his empire, and there was nothing he could do about that after Trafalgar. The flippant remark the movie has Napoleon supposedly making about Britain's "boats" is ridiculous. It makes no sense at all. Britain, for Napoleon, was a problem that simply couldn't be solved. Russia was another. And the 3rd was that France, although a great nation with great patriotic fervor, could not in the end prevail against the whole rest of Europe...as eventually became clear after the failure of his 1812 campaign in Russia. Those same problems later defeated Hitler. Just too many enemies. And the English Channel. And the Royal Navy. And the vastness of Russia. Empires fail when they reach too far.
I dont even recall them mentioning the Peninsular part of the wars either 🤦♂
@@TrueMithrandir - Yes, they failed to take note of that, and it seriously damaged the French. Again, made possible by the British Navy.
Portugal broke the blockade and helped Britain. And to the credit of The British they never forgot it.
Great review.
Great review! Ridley desperately needs to get his filmmaking back on track. You'd think at this stage of his career, he'd exercise a lot of prudence and make sure that the script was really good before jumping in but his actions indicate the opposite. He just seems to bounce from one disappointment to another. I guess it's hard to live up to your best (or even your half best).
No Ridley Scott is doing a superb job at the moment
no, gladiator was a one hit wonder convice me otherwise@@aidanphillips6760
Thanks for your great comment on that one. 🙂 Sounded like the movie had comedian stylish parts in it.
I think Marlon Brando did the Napoleon & Josephine movie years ago.
My problem with this movie is trying to tell Napoleon's life in 2.5 hours is ridiculous. The casting of Joaquin Phoenix was terrible too. The scenes with Josephine would have made more sense with a younger actor with actual charisma. I'm not sure why someone would make a biopic hating a subject and then forget to explain to the audience why you hate them. I have never walked out of a movie in my life and I honestly considered doing it here.
Casting Jospehine as some one who is younger would make it worse. Jospehine was 6 years older than Napoleon and about 20 years older than her depiction in the movie, thats why she couldnt bear kids anymore. I feel like that was a huge mispresentation of their relationship since the only reason Napoleon and Josephine ended like that is because of her age and that was completely dismissed in the movie.
I assume you meant Josphine and not Joaquin, if you meant him then I agree with you.
In my opinion it is impossible to fit the whole Napoleonic era in a 2 hour movie. Ridley Scott tried to squeeze everything inside this movie and failed. For instance Napoleon's Russian campaign which could be a movie of it's own is depicted in just 10 minutes! The battle of Waterloo way off the real facts. I mean where is Hougoumont? Where is the ferocious battle at Plancenoit village against the Prussians? Where is the legendary Imperial guard's last marching?
Napoleon himself is depicted as a half toxic, half crazy personality.....very weird result.
I liked though the accuracy in the uniforms and the cinematography.....
I didn't like it because (apart from all the glaring omissions and the fact it was basically a doomed romance drama) it was a very 'And then' movie. Things just happen but there's nothing to show the audience how or why. We're supposed to believe Napoleon has feelings and attitudes concerning things that are simply never explained or fleshed out. I just didn't care about his motivations at all, and at one point he had just finished the battle of Toulon, I went to the bathroom, came back, and he was Emperor of France. I mean, what happened there? In one scene the Emperor of Austria is telling him the Tsar hates him, but in the very next scene him and the Tsar were drinking a toast together. How? Why? When he was exiled for the second time I was like 'Good! Guy's an asshole.' The whole thing was a dog's breakfast.
And in 1 fatal move .... Ridley Scott successfully undid an entire lifetime of work in the film industry, to be remembered as the asshole responsible for creating the Worst Movie Ever Made.
His disgusting treatment of the Emperor in this film, and his arrogant dismissal of history is unforgivable.
Thank you for your refreshingly honest and accurate review. When I think of historical figures like Napolean, Mozart, I think of Polanski as a winning cinematic candidate. I admit in advance that Roman Polanski may be a touch too old to underake such an epic film as Napoleon. And if we can focus on filmmaking and not his personal foibles, I believe there is something meticulous and assured in Roman's direction that prompts me to think he would have been ideal making an epic film of this kind- in French, and with more depth and cinematic aplomb. Think of Polanski's Macbeth, The Pianist, An Officer and a Spy, Chinatown. Kubrick regarded him as an exemplary technician, which he was. Again, he is possibly too old to undertake such a lofty and ambitious film, but Roman's craftsmanship and Swiss-watch-like obsession with nuance and detail would have served this material well. Just an observation based on style and previous works.
Actually when he was younger Polanski could have played Napoleon - maybe with Kubrick directing.
Damn, I watched one review about this film, which was lukewarm. I've got a ticket booked for tomorrow and after seeing this I'm not looking forward to it. Without having yet seen it, one reservation that springs to mind is that I think I'll struggle to suspend my disbelief with Joaquin Phoenix playing him. Rod Steiger looked enough like him to get away with it in the 1970 movie.
0:37 I think this actually a really important point. When I was talking to my granddad about napoleon a few years I began I realize that people of that generation were taught the British version of Napoleons life. That Napoleon is same category as people like hitler, Stalin and genghis khan. When you take that into account the movie makes a lot more sense
Ridley shouldn't be allowed to make historical movies anymore. This movie was hastened too quickly during the story telling, the relationships, and the development of the main character. Not to mention that Phoenix at 49 is playing Napoleon from the transition of a teenager and onto his 20s, which made no sense until much later on at the end. Even the lack of Napoleon's character direction, his behavior and education throughout the years, accents being over and under played, understanding and evolvement from Ridley has made Phoenix limited in his performance.
As a french I have to admit no french director would have done better. Our movies suck.
Why use a love making scene as a jump scare. Twice.
They really should have made this a TV series instead of a movie
I do not know you, new to your site, but I trust your review 100%. I love Ridley and Joaquin but I hear you on "the mess of a movie,' because it has been happening for Ridley these last few movies.
I believe your observations..which, intuitively, seem fair. I am sure the screenplay should have focused less on trying to fit everything Napoleon did...but rather on the romance of Napoleon and Josephine. I know the French dont like it 😢. Thank you for saving me the time and money.
I guess - as regard heading out - this evening - to watch "Napoleon", it's a case of: "Not tonight, Ridley......." ☺
Great review!
Also, can we talk about the ugly visual design?
The color grading is no subtitle at all.
Everything is extremely blue and there is no vivid colors whatsoever.
It just add to the ugly aesthetic, which is ridiculous coming from Ridley, who always make beautiful looking movies like blade runner
I cut the part where I talked about it, just to cut the video length. This movie is largely dark and ugly.
This was perhaps the greatest film of all time!
One of the reasons, the movie is a total mess, is the fact that they cut out 90 minutes for the theatrical release. The full version, which is 4 hrs long will be released later on Apple TV+.
Basically they want you to pay twice, if you want to see the proper version.
They should have made this into a mini-series right away imho. Allegedly, Steven Spielberg was working on a Napoleon mini-series for HBO MAX, but after the BS that is going on with WB ( they're basically one step from going bankrupt), who knows if they gonna actually produce it.
But tbh, I doubt that the 4hrs director's cut will improve this.
Im surprised Scott didn't have Phoenix walk on his knees to show him as extremely short like British want you to believe.
For me it was like a series of adverts all stitched together, the girl who played Josephine was good but that's about it. Awful film, the script was embarrassing & I was really disappointed with the whole thing.
some critics think the humor was intentional
I think that would be worse.
You and I would have met each other at the door 75 minutes in to movie 🚪 leaving. I left early. It was hard to watch I just had to leave. I normally love Ridley Scott and Joaquin movies ! Great review
Josephine was a whoo-aah.
The last duel was incredible.
I'm very disappointed
Best version of Napoleon is from Bill and Ted.
Amen.
Are you watching the 4hr cut?
Is there one available?
@@LearningaboutMovies sometime in spring 2024.
I almost walked out, too.
This is just an extended trailer for the REAL 4hr plus version which will stream on Apple TV - wait for that.
definitely issues with the movie, but I had a lot of fun seeing this. Loved kirby and phoenix when they were being as toxic as a couple can be. Also, the austerlitz scene was worth the price of admission on itself.
Ridley Scott said he wanted viewers to laugh at most parts of the movie. I enjoyed the battle scenes. Don't really watch movies with action, but it was something I didn't know I need it
Intentional comedy clashes with most of what this movie is up to. If he wanted to do that, he should've tried for something like The Death of Stalin. Why have an hour of horrible somber battle scenes mixed with whiny Joaquin Phoenix sending up Napoleon?
@LearningaboutMovies you're only saying that because u have boats!
You make good points 👍thanks for replying
Those battles in the film were epic.
We want to present Napoleon as a dictator, but the royalty of the time were dictatorships.
Dictatorship overthrown in France by the Revolution which united neighboring royalties against it, for fear that their people would take an example from this Revolution.
This is what led to all these wars and Napoleon's coming to power.
What remains today of these kings of the time? Who can name them? We only talk about Napoleon, even though he was beaten.
Ask yourself why?
Maybe the content and quality of Napoleon is Ridley Scott projecting himself thru?
As visually stunning as most of his films have been, going back to the Duelists, there seems to be something awkward and just wrong. Blade Runner with its narration, Thelma and louise with its suicide sugar-coated ending, Gladiator with its histrionics, Black Hawk Down with its voice-over, Kingdom of Heaven with its inappropriate music, then I stopped watching.
Squirmish
The greatest film of all time is already a Napolean biopic, Stanely Kubrick loved it but he wanted to adapt it so he could polish the historical accuracy. He wrote a legendary and fantastic screenplay. But then Ridley came over, looked at the script and its genius, and ran away. That says enough about how terrible and amateur this film is. But hey, Phoenix can get another Oscar.
Hell they can give him 10 for all it's worth these days.
Phoenix is not a good actor
I immediately left the theaters and looked at my wife and asked her if she also felt like he was depicted like a villain
I was kind of impressed that they managed to make a 2.5 hour movie feel rushed but I guess that just goes to show how complicated the French Revolution was.
yes, exactly. This is the rare moment where I'd prefer 8 hours to 2.5, not of this material and these actors, but the events themselves deserve that longer treatment. This movie, at just 2.5 hours, could barely sort out the characters for us. You will notice how often it inartfully had to tell us via subtitle who each character is.
I mean I get why you reviewed this, but i'm still waiting for your review of across the spider verse :)
It's not great, but still enjoyable. Some of the choices made portraying Napoleon are head scratching. It's like phoenix was still in joker mode.
Totally agree!
Ridley Scott is a modus operandi ‘money orientated’ hack. Someone that makes a 'b-movie spectacle' into a blockbuster.
He's purely physical or exclusively 'practically' minded, there's nothing about him that's theoretical or conceptual.
Even after all of these years... he still 'thinks' like a commercials director. "Come prepared, get in and out as soon as possible".
This leaves his films as one note operas. Rather than expansive, labyrinthine artistic works.
His one ability… is to bring the very best ‘behind the camera’ talent to all of his productions.
That’s his skill, that’s why his films are so technically outstanding. But also why so many of his personal judgments are so very poor.
Casting and story development are just not his forte.
He will say that he was hampered by studio and union specific rules. Which hides the fact, he's the proverbial hammer with no subtlety.
Look at his completely flawed oeuvre. Not one film is a true masterpiece.
Take the ‘talent’ and hand over his projects to a truly great film maker and every one of them would've been far superior.
Totally agree - the film was disappointing, no insight into why so many men followed him (to death) and the film seemed so disjointed.
Phoenix did Napoleon no favors. Scarpa should be arrested
It felt like Scott was trying to depict Napoleon as a proto Hitler which always feels like such a tired and old trope.
Yet he wasn't even a populist in the film. There was no attempt to make any kind of sense regarding his rise to power.
@@LearningaboutMoviesOne thing that really baffled me about the whole movie was we kept being told how much Napoleon loved France and how great France is/was, but the France we see in the movie is, uh, not great. All we see of it is the Reign of Terror, in-fighting and incompetence of the Robespierre Regime, a collapse of the Consulate, the restoration of the (admittedly rather well protrayed) fat and slovenly Bourbon Dynasty, and France just constantly and wearily fighting off harryings and invasions by outside forces. The French in general are portrayed as louche, drunk, sex obsessed peasants whose whims turn on a dime, or fastidious, aloof jobsworths who believe bureacratic procedure is more important than wealth or security.
Barely any mention of the First Republic. No mention of the French client states. No mention whatsoever of the already extant French Empire (North Africa, Guyana, Pondicherry, Indochina, Louisiana, etc.), and no indication of how or why any of the places Napoleon fought for were worth a damn.
From the movie you'd be forgiven for believing Toulon was some pissant little port of No significance on the Channel Coast, but it was actually France's imperial Mediterranean port for centuries. The fact that Britain was dominating the Mediterranean was all but glossed over and gave us no indication that France claimed or even wanted supremacy over it. Ditto to no mention of Napoleon's native Corsica being coveted by the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont.
The whole movie makes France look like some weak, feckless, incompetent, embittered, and chaotic minor power of Europe, and so I imagine many audience members will be left wondering why Napoleon, not even a French metropole citizen, would care about it at all.
The worst movie I have seen in several years. Joachim Phoenix gets to play one of the most complex and charismatic figures of history - and delivers his lines like he is reading the news, and looks like he needs a bath half the time. As for the battle scenes: They were not epic, they were awful. Apart from Toulon, they were not fought in the dark or at dusk. They didn't use trench warfare, and riflemen did not have telescopic sights. Musket era armies did not rush headlong at each other like vikings. They moved and counter moved against each other so their line infantry and artillery could deliver the most damaging volleys, whilst using cavalry to cover their flanks and neutralise enemy artillery. This is what Napoleon was best at, and we saw none of it. I was embarrassed that I took friends with me to see this.
This movie 100% wants you to laugh at it
In real life he was bullied in his youth for his Italian looks and accent...he seems to have had delusions of grandeur and idolized Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Hannibal Barca and probably wanted to follow in their footsteps, he set off to act out this dream in Corsica hoping to free it from the French/English aristocracy and rule it but was chased out with his tail between his legs by Corsican's own people and politicians back to France, ironically because they found him to be an ambitious little brat and a wannabe dictator...He had a Humorous Blue Collar persona using vulgar jokes to inspire his troops and in his early younger days risked his own life many times on the battlefield, he wore a simple corporal officers uniform even after several promotions, ate what regular soldiers ate and slept in a common soldiers tent. He was notoriously bad with women he did marry a common woman before Josephine but divorced her to marry Josephine and join the higher circles of French Society, she was repulsed by him and found him to be plain, vulgar, and ugly...When he married the French Emperors daughter she too was repulsed but both of them ended up falling for Napoleon in the long run who had a funny humorous side that both would find endearing. He probably was a bit racist...He did not get along with Thomas Alexander Dumas, the famous Black General of the French Revolution and is said to have sent him on suicide missions hoping to have him killed off, he also tricked the newly appointed leader of Haiti who was hailed as a Black Napoleon in to visiting France for a reward and instead imprisoned him and unsuccessfully tried to retake Haiti and reinstitute slavery...Either way he is a fascinating character and yes I wasn't too impressed with Joaquin's portrayal, he had the looks but seemed to phone it in...the movie was a bit aimless...but I can't be too hard on Ridley he is almost 90 and still can deliver some beautiful cinematography, the actress who played Josephine was beautiful and gave a good performance to Joaquin's weird portrayal of Napoleon 😂