Movie Review: Napoleon

November 17, 2023

by G. E. Uke, Reporter

One of the problems you’re always going to run into when creating a movie based upon a real life historical figure is that, unless you lie and exaggerate things a whole bunch, there will be significant periods of normalcy and drudgery which don’t interest the average action-addicted moviegoer. Real life is seldom as exciting as fiction. Napoleon from director Ridley Scott conforms to this rule; it is not purely meant to entertain. It is meant to educate, and to show you something that hopefully you will internalize.

Despite the length of this movie, it does very little in the way of character development. There are only two characters in the entire story that enjoy depth and development: Napoleon and Josephine. Everyone else is window dressing, even important characters like Tzar Alexandre or the Duke of Wellington. Scenes are chained together rapid-fire because the career of Bonaparte is simply too long to waste time on anything else. This can make the movie feel rushed at times, but if viewed as a character study of a single man’s life it can be forgiven for not being something it never was meant to be.

The battle scenes are very well done. The scope of them, the costumes, the props, everything is top notch. For the longest time I had difficulty imagining the crisp soldiers of that era with their neat little uniforms and ridiculous hats brutalizing one another. Now I have no difficulty with it at all. The movie impresses upon you just what cannons can do to people right from the start, and it never lets you forget. The juxtaposition between the poise and ornamentation of the era and the violence of warfare is jarring at times.

Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix, The Joker) is depicted as an emotionally complicated but politely sociopathic man, and so is Josephine (Vanessa Kirby, Mission Impossible: Fallout). The film does a good job of showcasing just how callous and ambitious both can be, while also delving into their bizarre relationship with one another. Their fierce codependency cannot truly be called conventional love; it’s more like they validate and base their self-esteem upon one another. When both are eventually pushed to divorce, it finally becomes clear that each is the other’s only true friend. The performance of both actors is extremely well done on this point.

I have several points of criticism with the movie, beginning with how gratuitously vulgar it often was. It felt like the sex scenes were created to shock without doing much for the actual story. The soldiers were robotic in their portrayal, evidencing little of the shock and self-preservation instinct real men possess. The politicians and noblemen of France were also universally depicted as greedy, incompetent, and vapid. I understand this was done to justify the idea of Napoleon seizing power, but it lionized him to an unrealistic decree. The real Napoleon wanted an empire, and he destroyed many peaceful and ethical rulers to carve it out. I don’t feel like this was properly shown.

Overall:

Rating:
In summation, I give Napoleon 4 of 5 stars. It does a fine job of educating the viewer and painting a picture of the events and ambiance of the time. The acting of Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby was top notch, and the emotion of their interactions was intense. The battle scenes were well choreographed, and dramatic enough to satisfy even the most hardened military history enthusiast. But the very strength of their acting detracts from everything else.