Gladiator, The Last Duel, Blade Runner, or Alien, it is not. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon was my most anticipated movie of 2023. The elements were in place. It had the director. It had the actor (Joaquin Phoenix – Walk the Line, Joker). It had the story. Yet, the pieces never came together. Instead, it was a two-hour and 38-minute chaotic mess that offered no logical transition of scenes, little connection between characters, and easily forgettable battle scenes that left much to be desired. This film was a catastrophic failure in many ways.
Promoted as a war film with incredible action sequences, Napoleon felt more like an underdeveloped made-for-television movie. There were no more than 30 minutes of combined battle sequences, all of which paled compared to other Scott films, such as Gladiator, King of Heaven, The Last Duel, or Robin Hood. Because Scott masterfully crafted battle scenes and action sequences in those movies, it felt like Napoleon had a different director entirely. I wouldn’t say that Scott has lost his touch, as it has only been two years since he told a fantastic story with one massively impressive battle scene in 2021’s The Last Duel. Nevertheless, Napoleon felt much more like Scott’s other 2021 film, the flatless, uninteresting House of Gucci, than The Last Duel.
If I could start with the good, I would. There wasn’t much. Phoenix was the highlight, doing what he could with too loose a script that whethered in the editing room. His portrayal as the titular character was on point. He brought Napoleon’s inner turmoil to the surface. The battles he waged in his head seemed far more torturous than the wars he engaged in. As a leader, Phoenix’s Napoleon was, on the exterior, full of vigor and confidence. He didn’t just believe that he could win every battle; he knew it. His battles were like a game of chess. Napoleon knew when to be on the offensive when to act more defensively, and when to counter. Outside of his position in the military, his insecurity was on full display for us to see, mainly when it came to women and particularly his first wife, Josephine (Vanessa Kirby – Pieces of a Woman, The World to Come). He lived and died on his perception of how these relationships were going. His constant need for reassurance came across as desperate, clingy, and whiney.
Outside of Phoenix, the movie failed. Kirby is an A-list actress. While she played an excellent counter for Phoenix, she needed to be more developed and underused. And I’m not referring to screen time. She was actually on the screen much more than I anticipated. However, that is because Scott focused more on Napoleon’s life outside the military than his rise through the ranks or his position as emperor. It felt like each scene between Napoleon and Josephine resembled the one before.
However, the major problem with Napoleon was the direction, script, and editing. The film begins with The French Revolution of 1893 and encapsulates the rest of his life from there. That is a lot to accomplish in a limited amount of time. The film was cut from four hours to two hours and 38 minutes. It felt like four hours. That’s not a compliment. It felt like what ended up on the cutting room floor was what we wanted to see or needed to know. Not only did we get less than 30 minutes of battle scenes, those battles told no story. The lead-up should have been shorter for the action we saw. Then they ended, and we learn that Napoleon moved up in rank. Then, more squabbing with Josephine until we repeated the process. The transitions from scene to scene or period to period were jagged. We were told more than they happened than actually seeing them occur. The Director’s Cut might reveal more of the overarching story and allow us to become part of Napoleon’s progression. More than anything, I want to learn more about this man’s captivating tale. Scott needed to provide us with the story that we wanted.
I’ve read numerous reviews that referenced the comedic elements of Napoleon. To that, I have two statements. Sadly, I’m not sure if the comedy was intentional. If it was, it missed the mark, as there wasn’t any laughing from the audience at my showing. Secondly, as I did see it opening weekend, I was likely with filmgoers who might have been hoping for Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven parallels, two imposing films. Like me, my perception was my audience wasn’t interested in any comedic elements but rather the next heralded historical narrative from a director who had mastered the genre. Or, perhaps, like me, they could have been more interested in the film almost from the start.
Napoleon underwhelms in the grandest of fashions. Knowing what I knew about Napoleon’s reign as emperor, the last thing I expected was a movie so overdrawn and dull. Whereas we could have had epic battle scenes at Toulon, Austerlitz, Borodino, and Waterloo, we instead got cursory glimpses from afar of the bloodshed, flimsy segues between a victory and Napoleon’s rise in rank, and uninteresting spats between him and Josephine. When the four-hour Director’s Cut is released for home viewing, the film will be much more fluid and contain in-depth battle scenes. However, I’m not overly optimistic. Napoleon is a massive miss for all involved.
Plot 6/10 (tried to accomplish far too much of Napoleon’s life)
Character Development 5/10 (for a 2.5-hour film, the characters were not flushed out nearly as well as they should have been)
Character Chemistry 5/10
Acting 7/10
Screenplay 5/10 (1.5 hours left on the cutting room floor caused some awkward sequencing)
Directing 6/10
Cinematography 9.25/10
Sound 5/10 (a Ridley Scott film should not have a score this unmemorable)
Hook and Reel 6.75/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
63%
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Gladiator
- The Last Duel
- Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
- Robin Hood
- Outlaw King