Napoleon is a historical drama about the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Joaquin Phoenix. Napoleon shows us how the young general seized power during the turmoil in the French government before being exiled until his death. With Vanessa Kirby as Josephine Bonaparte, Napoleon does a lot well and leaves a lot to be desired.
I’ll start with some positives. I believe this movie truly captured the brutality of war while showcasing and highlighting the strategy needed to win each battle. The movie gets graphic as all hell, but of all the things Ridley got wrong, that’s probably the most accurate thing in the movie. Horses are blown apart, men are decapitated and torn through and it is a marvel to watch. The cinematography was simply incredible.
I didn’t love everything about Phoenix’s portrayal, but I loved how he played Napoleon as an anxious general during each battle, instead of a cold, stoic killer. He is often short of breath and looks like he is unsure if he’s making the right moves, even though they end up working more times than not. He covers his ears at each cannon shot and mortar fire, which I think helped personify him more than just the idea of him I had in my head.
Vanessa Kirby rocked her role. As Josephine, she was the character I found myself connecting with the most. She made me believe she loved Napoleon and then made me believe that she had him wrapped around her finger. Her chemistry with Phoenix was solid, especially since they played up the more erotic side of their relationship for this movie. When she felt pain, I felt pain. When she felt powerful, so did I.
For the things I didn’t like, there’s a few major points. For one, I’m not a historian by any means so I won’t point out the details that are historically inaccurate. But for a movie about the French Emperor set in France, could we not have at least attempted French accents? Neither leads have a French accent (although Kirby uses her natural British voice which is close enough compared to Phoenix). It honestly became distracting, especially as he yells to the British about them having boats and how he loves being French.
The tone of Napoleon is all over the place. Sometimes it’s serious as Napoleon leads troops on to the battlefield. Other times it’s dark as he watches Moscow burn to the ground. And then other times it’s just weirdly silly when he gets horny for Josephine and starts barking. There is apparently a 4-hour director’s cut which I think would help make the tones mesh better, but with what we have it’s all over the place.
With that too, I found the non-battle scenes to be pretty boring and they were hard to follow along to. I might have to watch it again, but the movie felt like it took it’s time to say that Napoleon wanted to be in power and that he was constantly horny. I’ve gotten better at sitting through longer movies but movies that are long and feel even longer are just tough.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Napoleon is going to be up there with with one the more disappointing movies of the year for me, not because it was bad, but because I thought it would be great. Maybe the 4-hour version is what I expected, but that’s not the movie I watched. The movie tries to do too much and outside of some phenomenal battle sequences, I struggled to keep up with other elements of the story. Vanessa Kirby was awesome, Joaquin Phoenix was pretty good, and the cinematography was incredibly done.
