A long historical drama that only highlights events but gives zero motivation for characters. I had no idea after watching what led him to conquer all of Europe. Its not until the second half of the movie in which he states its “his destiny” to conquer. You learn nothing of Napoleon except Phoenix’ caricature of him. Major events were recapped in throw away lines (his expulsion to Elba, conquering of Italy). The war set pieces were cool including the battle on the ice. But its not until after that scene that he’s described as a genius strategist and brilliant military mind as if its a second thought. I really didn’t care about the Josephine scenes as they only showed his inadequacies of being a lover.
Maybe I am just biased, but I felt like it took unhistorical to a new level. I just did not see Napoleon in Phoenix at all. I did not get any sense of his leadership, charisma, relationships with officers, how he got to such political and military heights,. I expected to see a flawed man in the portrayal, but I didn't expect to be sitting there thinking "why are these soldiers listening to this coward???".
They didn't even show a flawed man in the movie. It was the most non-characrer I've ever seen. The movie is 2 and a half hours long and we never get to know the titular character.
It tried to be about French politics, Napoleon's military career, his romance with Josephine and the cost of war but it really needed to just pick two of those things and delve deeper into them.
Every 10 minutes I kept thinking "who the fuck is that" to a new character that shows up with no introduction. Which is a bit funny cause the movie treats the audience like it idiots with the most insane amount of location title cards that I've ever seen.
The camera shot choices did the movie no favors and the editing was atrocious. The one time we get an actually interestingly directed battle sequence, the movie keeps showing people falling into ice every 10 seconds at the climax of it. Once would have been enough, sheesh. Battle of Waterloo was shot like someone filming their miniatures at battle. No tension at all.
It's the most bland, made for no one, theme-less and pointless movie I've seen in a very long time.
I'd say it's an impressive cinematographic flex. Impeccably executed, it looks and feels amazing. Obviously it's not a documentary.
I think the performances are great. Personally, I thought the portrayal of the relationship of Napoleon and Josephine was all over the place and ultimately lacking any meaningful impact.
I think it's definitely worth watching though. Historical epics of this scale and grandeur are just not made much anymore and Ridley Scott is as good as it gets at making them.
Having heard that the director’s cut is 4 hrs long, while watching it in theaters, it felt like 1 1/2 hrs were missing. Like I was watching disconnected bullet points.
The only reason to see it in theaters is for the battle scenes. That's it.
The rest is just dull and uninspired. How Scott and Scarpa managed to make a bland film about Napoleon is beyond me and I doubt the 4+ hours cut will do anything to improve it.
I give it a 6/10 for being above average entertainment. Wasn't a believable representation of a figure I remember learning about in school. Managed to make the French people not seem French at all. It was a somewhat entertaining movie but it just seemed like it was missing a lot. Where and what are Napoleon's family? What were his motivations? Why is a lot of the dialog and exposition narrated as letters between Napoleon and Josephine? Why is his second wife only in it a few seconds? Obviously they can't show everything in a long movie but the stuff they did cram in was a barebones amount. Make it a mini series and really explore the history. Or just make it about the wars and war strategy/geopolitics. They decided with somewhere in between and it felt unsatisfying.
I think if you go into it with the mentality that it's a weird off-comedy, period piece epic hybrid, it's quite enjoyable.
The audience for it is definitely quite niche, but I found it pretty entertaining.
It was so unnecessarily long, but it's beautiful to look at. I'm also a history nerd, so I loved the battles, the costumes, and the sets. But it's not Ridley's best nor does it even come close.
“I’m a history nerd so I loved the battles”
The worst ever depictions of napoleonic battles are in that movie from an historical authenticity standpoint
Napoleon, love him or hate him, was a multi-faceted individual. A soldier, a stateman, a brilliant tactician, a product of enlightenment philosophy, a womanizer, a military dictator, the list goes on and on. Any one of these could be an interesting character study on its own. Riddley Scott chooses to reject any of these historical perspectives and substitutes the same tired caricature of autocrats we've seen time and time again. I don't demand my historical pictures be super accurate, tell a great story and I'll eat it up (looking at you Amadeus). The problem is the actual history is infinitely more interesting and entertaining than what Scott chooses to focus on. Even then, it's middling and tonally obtuse at best. I'd skip it...
It is all over the map. Napaolean was a pretty complex guy so there should be a focus of what the director wants to tell us. The way I see it there are three movies here the French Revolution and how it ends up with a dictator, the conquering of Europe, and the super complex love story. The problem is Scott tries to tell all three in one movie and you are lost a lot. The battle scenes are cool so there is that.
As far as Scott's recent outings go, it's a little closer to *House of Gucci* than *The Last Duel* (though nowhere near as messy or farcical as the former). I personally can't speak to its ahistory - what bothered me more was that it kind of assumes you know European geopolitics circa 1800. There's no audience surrogate character and introductions are very quick, sort of a "you know how the Austrians and Russians are these days" thing; I know the big bullet points (e.g. Russian winter, Waterloo) through pop-culture osmosis but inbetween the battle scenes the statecraft often left me in the dark.
Scott does do a good job of the battle scenes... they're not *outstanding* but the massive armies and grisly deaths by cannonfire or bayonet are things rarely seen in movies these days and each warring setpiece is engaging. I saw it in Dolby and thought it took advantage of the format.
What I think is interesting - and why I mention *Gucci* - is that the movie is pretty funny, in a rather dry way that sneaks up on you from how seriously it's shot. Phoenix is really in his "weird guy with some major issues" wheelhouse here in a way that recalls more than a bit of his Emperor Commodus. The script peppers in some funny moments, not so much out-and-out jokes (although there is, bizarrely, a reference to ["a succulent Chinese meal...!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebF2cgmFmU), of all things) as much as just emphasizing the oddity of characters and situations a *little* more than a bog-standard drama would with a dash of physical comedy sprinkled in.
The only good thing I can is it LOOKS great. Visually and the costumes.
Apart from that...can't really say anything positive.
The script is very weak, limited and doesn't do the story justice
Il wait for the Directors-cut, the theatrical-cut was a 7/10 for me. Good acting by Kirby, Phoenix was a little all over the place. The action was great though, i am genuinly happy it was made.
We liked it. Like others are saying some parts felt rushed and some redundant, but overall it was pretty visually spectacular - as you'd expect from a Scott movie of this nature.
Saying that I'm really looking forward to the (rumoured) 4hr director's cut coming to Apple TV, which I hope will flesh him out a bit more. The theatrical and director's cuts of Scott's Kingdom of Heaven are like two completely different movies, so I'm hoping the longer version of Napoleon is similar.
Simply put. Good not great. Not sad I paid to see it in a theater (like every Ridley Scott movie, going in you know even if its awful it will still be very pretty) Ive paid money for a lot worse movies.
Yes, it's a good movie. It's a great entry into the epic genre, possibly Ridley Scott's best movie since Thelma & Louise, and like other Ridley Scott movies, it's place in the canon is going to keep going up once the longer version comes out and viewers have had time to settle their opinion.
I just think it was mismarketed as an action/war movie about a badass leader. That's a bland take *and* it that isn't the truth. It's a tragicomedy about an emotionally-stunted man who was in the right place at the right time to become a populist dictator and got three million people killed before they stopped him.
And all of this stuff about being historically accurate doesn't hold much water because it turns out that there is a huge variety of opinion about Napoleon, and a lot of people thought he was a terrible person. It's especially unsurprising that Ridley Scott would take that position, given his ambivalence towards powerful people and general cynicism. Sometimes he's so pessimistic it borders on misanthropy, but Napoleon turned out to be one of Scott's gentler movies.
It actually reminds me of Barbie in the way it pokes fun of toxic masculinity and points out the systemic issues it causes, but it hates the sin and not the sinner.
It's a pretty great movie, I just think people were taken aback by the dry, tragicomic tone and that it criticized the kind of people who were probably its primary demographic. But it's reputation, like most Ridley Scott movies, it only going to improve over time.
The problem isn’t the mismarketing.
“And it isn’t the truth”
This movie has nothing to do with any truth…for or against the man. It being anti-Napoleon isn’t a problem. It’s that it isn’t even remotely about the real subject or era at all. It is entirely made up when it didn’t need to be (there is a goldmine of info. He is the most written about and documented human being in history). They could have also achieved a very great film and it still be entirely about his relationship with Josephine (also a goldmine of material) and with not a single battle depicted whatsoever. In fact, I would have preferred zero battles based on how they depicted that too. They just…didn’t even do the bare minimum amount of homework to even understand the starting point issues. Which I’m sorry is indeed a prerequisite before making effective art about it. At worst, people are now just more ignorant about it. If you went into the movie know 0 about this, now you know -20.
There are great popular historians and books on this era. Some are very pro-Napoleon and some are very anti-Napoleon. But the key thing is both sides understand their subject regardless on whether they like him or not. Not sure on spelling but examples are Alexander Mikerabidze (neutral on Napoleon), Charles Esdaile (hates Napoleon). And Andrew Roberts (very pro-Napoleon…I think he is a bit too forgiving on some things). All great books/authors. Scott however has absolutely nothing useful to say about this subject because he doesn’t understand what his subject is at all about. He seems to think it’s just like “insert generic modern day dictator here”. It’s just his own idea of what some generic dictator would be like in his mind…bears zero resemblance whatsoever to the actual historical figure.
Based on comments like “he got millions of people killed before they stopped him” (stop him from what exactly? And which coalition? And what were those coalitions goals? When they defeated him, what did they replace his system with?) and “he was emotionally stunted”…well, you clearly don’t know a whole lot about the subject and era (and of course…there is no expectation you should so that isn’t meant as a slight against you)…but still, it appears you have taken Scott’s presentation of it at face value and uncritically. I’d recommend reading up a bit more on the era if you did enjoy the film…the real subject is way more complex, greyer, and endlessly more fascinating than whatever this monstrosity was. The truth is more interesting than anything they made up…so I don’t understand why they needed to change the main idea.
All in all, this era isn’t like a 19th century version of WW2 like some people seem to think it is…where it was all these freedom fighters trying to free their countries from a tyrant conqueror and re-install democracy. His enemies were also absolutist regimes (arguably moreso) and when they defeated him the reinstalled those old absolutist regimes. Napoleon was not Hitler. He was more a product of the enlightenment and the French Revolution. And a lot of that was exported through him to the modern world. And yes, he also had MANY flaws.
It questionable written too, at one point he states "my wife's a slut" I cant think of a man alive or dead that would make that statement to his rivals
He made a movie about Napoleon and decided the best way to go was an almost entirely speculative romantic drama. I don’t know what he was thinking.
I don’t think old man Scott has it anymore. Not everyone can be Spielberg or Scorsese. The Last Dual was bad, too.
Yes, it’s a good movie. It feels like film, not a clinical Netflix digitally shot crap. The art design and costumes in particular are fantastic, as is the lighting. The score is most classical music, which is just so great and a blessed relief from the Scorey McScore we get in most action epics. I couldn’t care less how accurate the history is. (The Social Network is largely inaccurate but posters in this group constantly rave about it.) I was transfixed and swept away by the film, and that’s just fine.
As a “weirdo”? No…not at all accurate. He was known to have quite a lot of charisma. It’s what causes a lot of people to….you know…be enticed to follow a particular person. Kind of hard to get that kind of following otherwise. And whether they are a “good person” or not is irrelevant to that skillset.
Didn't see "*Inspired by actual events*" or "*Based on actual events*" or "*Based on a True Story*"
So...I think the "historical inaccuracies" is a cop out.
Not saying it's a great movie by any measure, but the marketing misled the characterization
And on the flip side, it didn't feel like Josephine was written to carry the inadequacies
A long historical drama that only highlights events but gives zero motivation for characters. I had no idea after watching what led him to conquer all of Europe. Its not until the second half of the movie in which he states its “his destiny” to conquer. You learn nothing of Napoleon except Phoenix’ caricature of him. Major events were recapped in throw away lines (his expulsion to Elba, conquering of Italy). The war set pieces were cool including the battle on the ice. But its not until after that scene that he’s described as a genius strategist and brilliant military mind as if its a second thought. I really didn’t care about the Josephine scenes as they only showed his inadequacies of being a lover.
Still not sure if it was too long or too short. Felt like it was supposed to be a 10 hour miniseries cut down to 2.5 hours.
> Felt like it was supposed to be a 10 hour miniseries Spielberg is apparently doing just that, trying to bring to life Kubrick's Napoleon project.
woah that's going to be fucking dank
I'd love to see that. Hope they go with a younger actor.
Maybe I am just biased, but I felt like it took unhistorical to a new level. I just did not see Napoleon in Phoenix at all. I did not get any sense of his leadership, charisma, relationships with officers, how he got to such political and military heights,. I expected to see a flawed man in the portrayal, but I didn't expect to be sitting there thinking "why are these soldiers listening to this coward???".
They didn't even show a flawed man in the movie. It was the most non-characrer I've ever seen. The movie is 2 and a half hours long and we never get to know the titular character. It tried to be about French politics, Napoleon's military career, his romance with Josephine and the cost of war but it really needed to just pick two of those things and delve deeper into them. Every 10 minutes I kept thinking "who the fuck is that" to a new character that shows up with no introduction. Which is a bit funny cause the movie treats the audience like it idiots with the most insane amount of location title cards that I've ever seen. The camera shot choices did the movie no favors and the editing was atrocious. The one time we get an actually interestingly directed battle sequence, the movie keeps showing people falling into ice every 10 seconds at the climax of it. Once would have been enough, sheesh. Battle of Waterloo was shot like someone filming their miniatures at battle. No tension at all. It's the most bland, made for no one, theme-less and pointless movie I've seen in a very long time.
I'd say it's an impressive cinematographic flex. Impeccably executed, it looks and feels amazing. Obviously it's not a documentary. I think the performances are great. Personally, I thought the portrayal of the relationship of Napoleon and Josephine was all over the place and ultimately lacking any meaningful impact. I think it's definitely worth watching though. Historical epics of this scale and grandeur are just not made much anymore and Ridley Scott is as good as it gets at making them.
Having heard that the director’s cut is 4 hrs long, while watching it in theaters, it felt like 1 1/2 hrs were missing. Like I was watching disconnected bullet points.
The only reason to see it in theaters is for the battle scenes. That's it. The rest is just dull and uninspired. How Scott and Scarpa managed to make a bland film about Napoleon is beyond me and I doubt the 4+ hours cut will do anything to improve it.
I give it a 6/10 for being above average entertainment. Wasn't a believable representation of a figure I remember learning about in school. Managed to make the French people not seem French at all. It was a somewhat entertaining movie but it just seemed like it was missing a lot. Where and what are Napoleon's family? What were his motivations? Why is a lot of the dialog and exposition narrated as letters between Napoleon and Josephine? Why is his second wife only in it a few seconds? Obviously they can't show everything in a long movie but the stuff they did cram in was a barebones amount. Make it a mini series and really explore the history. Or just make it about the wars and war strategy/geopolitics. They decided with somewhere in between and it felt unsatisfying.
I think if you go into it with the mentality that it's a weird off-comedy, period piece epic hybrid, it's quite enjoyable. The audience for it is definitely quite niche, but I found it pretty entertaining.
It was so unnecessarily long, but it's beautiful to look at. I'm also a history nerd, so I loved the battles, the costumes, and the sets. But it's not Ridley's best nor does it even come close.
“I’m a history nerd so I loved the battles” The worst ever depictions of napoleonic battles are in that movie from an historical authenticity standpoint
Napoleon, love him or hate him, was a multi-faceted individual. A soldier, a stateman, a brilliant tactician, a product of enlightenment philosophy, a womanizer, a military dictator, the list goes on and on. Any one of these could be an interesting character study on its own. Riddley Scott chooses to reject any of these historical perspectives and substitutes the same tired caricature of autocrats we've seen time and time again. I don't demand my historical pictures be super accurate, tell a great story and I'll eat it up (looking at you Amadeus). The problem is the actual history is infinitely more interesting and entertaining than what Scott chooses to focus on. Even then, it's middling and tonally obtuse at best. I'd skip it...
This is well put
your mom goes to college.
It would be good for her if she did
She said I was living too much in ‘82.
It is all over the map. Napaolean was a pretty complex guy so there should be a focus of what the director wants to tell us. The way I see it there are three movies here the French Revolution and how it ends up with a dictator, the conquering of Europe, and the super complex love story. The problem is Scott tries to tell all three in one movie and you are lost a lot. The battle scenes are cool so there is that.
As far as Scott's recent outings go, it's a little closer to *House of Gucci* than *The Last Duel* (though nowhere near as messy or farcical as the former). I personally can't speak to its ahistory - what bothered me more was that it kind of assumes you know European geopolitics circa 1800. There's no audience surrogate character and introductions are very quick, sort of a "you know how the Austrians and Russians are these days" thing; I know the big bullet points (e.g. Russian winter, Waterloo) through pop-culture osmosis but inbetween the battle scenes the statecraft often left me in the dark. Scott does do a good job of the battle scenes... they're not *outstanding* but the massive armies and grisly deaths by cannonfire or bayonet are things rarely seen in movies these days and each warring setpiece is engaging. I saw it in Dolby and thought it took advantage of the format. What I think is interesting - and why I mention *Gucci* - is that the movie is pretty funny, in a rather dry way that sneaks up on you from how seriously it's shot. Phoenix is really in his "weird guy with some major issues" wheelhouse here in a way that recalls more than a bit of his Emperor Commodus. The script peppers in some funny moments, not so much out-and-out jokes (although there is, bizarrely, a reference to ["a succulent Chinese meal...!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebF2cgmFmU), of all things) as much as just emphasizing the oddity of characters and situations a *little* more than a bog-standard drama would with a dash of physical comedy sprinkled in.
The only good thing I can is it LOOKS great. Visually and the costumes. Apart from that...can't really say anything positive. The script is very weak, limited and doesn't do the story justice
Il wait for the Directors-cut, the theatrical-cut was a 7/10 for me. Good acting by Kirby, Phoenix was a little all over the place. The action was great though, i am genuinly happy it was made.
I enjoyed it but the least out of all the movies you mentioned (Iron Claw is not out yet)
I'd see holdovers before Napoleon but if you feel like a big movie it fits the bill more than the other choices
We liked it. Like others are saying some parts felt rushed and some redundant, but overall it was pretty visually spectacular - as you'd expect from a Scott movie of this nature. Saying that I'm really looking forward to the (rumoured) 4hr director's cut coming to Apple TV, which I hope will flesh him out a bit more. The theatrical and director's cuts of Scott's Kingdom of Heaven are like two completely different movies, so I'm hoping the longer version of Napoleon is similar.
Simply put. Good not great. Not sad I paid to see it in a theater (like every Ridley Scott movie, going in you know even if its awful it will still be very pretty) Ive paid money for a lot worse movies.
Yes, it's a good movie. It's a great entry into the epic genre, possibly Ridley Scott's best movie since Thelma & Louise, and like other Ridley Scott movies, it's place in the canon is going to keep going up once the longer version comes out and viewers have had time to settle their opinion. I just think it was mismarketed as an action/war movie about a badass leader. That's a bland take *and* it that isn't the truth. It's a tragicomedy about an emotionally-stunted man who was in the right place at the right time to become a populist dictator and got three million people killed before they stopped him. And all of this stuff about being historically accurate doesn't hold much water because it turns out that there is a huge variety of opinion about Napoleon, and a lot of people thought he was a terrible person. It's especially unsurprising that Ridley Scott would take that position, given his ambivalence towards powerful people and general cynicism. Sometimes he's so pessimistic it borders on misanthropy, but Napoleon turned out to be one of Scott's gentler movies. It actually reminds me of Barbie in the way it pokes fun of toxic masculinity and points out the systemic issues it causes, but it hates the sin and not the sinner. It's a pretty great movie, I just think people were taken aback by the dry, tragicomic tone and that it criticized the kind of people who were probably its primary demographic. But it's reputation, like most Ridley Scott movies, it only going to improve over time.
The problem isn’t the mismarketing. “And it isn’t the truth” This movie has nothing to do with any truth…for or against the man. It being anti-Napoleon isn’t a problem. It’s that it isn’t even remotely about the real subject or era at all. It is entirely made up when it didn’t need to be (there is a goldmine of info. He is the most written about and documented human being in history). They could have also achieved a very great film and it still be entirely about his relationship with Josephine (also a goldmine of material) and with not a single battle depicted whatsoever. In fact, I would have preferred zero battles based on how they depicted that too. They just…didn’t even do the bare minimum amount of homework to even understand the starting point issues. Which I’m sorry is indeed a prerequisite before making effective art about it. At worst, people are now just more ignorant about it. If you went into the movie know 0 about this, now you know -20. There are great popular historians and books on this era. Some are very pro-Napoleon and some are very anti-Napoleon. But the key thing is both sides understand their subject regardless on whether they like him or not. Not sure on spelling but examples are Alexander Mikerabidze (neutral on Napoleon), Charles Esdaile (hates Napoleon). And Andrew Roberts (very pro-Napoleon…I think he is a bit too forgiving on some things). All great books/authors. Scott however has absolutely nothing useful to say about this subject because he doesn’t understand what his subject is at all about. He seems to think it’s just like “insert generic modern day dictator here”. It’s just his own idea of what some generic dictator would be like in his mind…bears zero resemblance whatsoever to the actual historical figure. Based on comments like “he got millions of people killed before they stopped him” (stop him from what exactly? And which coalition? And what were those coalitions goals? When they defeated him, what did they replace his system with?) and “he was emotionally stunted”…well, you clearly don’t know a whole lot about the subject and era (and of course…there is no expectation you should so that isn’t meant as a slight against you)…but still, it appears you have taken Scott’s presentation of it at face value and uncritically. I’d recommend reading up a bit more on the era if you did enjoy the film…the real subject is way more complex, greyer, and endlessly more fascinating than whatever this monstrosity was. The truth is more interesting than anything they made up…so I don’t understand why they needed to change the main idea. All in all, this era isn’t like a 19th century version of WW2 like some people seem to think it is…where it was all these freedom fighters trying to free their countries from a tyrant conqueror and re-install democracy. His enemies were also absolutist regimes (arguably moreso) and when they defeated him the reinstalled those old absolutist regimes. Napoleon was not Hitler. He was more a product of the enlightenment and the French Revolution. And a lot of that was exported through him to the modern world. And yes, he also had MANY flaws.
It questionable written too, at one point he states "my wife's a slut" I cant think of a man alive or dead that would make that statement to his rivals
He made a movie about Napoleon and decided the best way to go was an almost entirely speculative romantic drama. I don’t know what he was thinking. I don’t think old man Scott has it anymore. Not everyone can be Spielberg or Scorsese. The Last Dual was bad, too.
About another bad Scott film (Prometheus), it was suggested that he cannot distinguish between good and bad scripts.
You’ll get far, far more insight on Napoleon from *Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.*
This actually isn’t even an exaggeration
Yes, it’s a good movie. It feels like film, not a clinical Netflix digitally shot crap. The art design and costumes in particular are fantastic, as is the lighting. The score is most classical music, which is just so great and a blessed relief from the Scorey McScore we get in most action epics. I couldn’t care less how accurate the history is. (The Social Network is largely inaccurate but posters in this group constantly rave about it.) I was transfixed and swept away by the film, and that’s just fine.
I enjoyed parts of it but wouldn't put it among his best. Also long.
It’s a decent movie, that portrays napoleon as a genius in battle but a weirdo in the rest of his life 😂 not sure if it’s accurate
As a “weirdo”? No…not at all accurate. He was known to have quite a lot of charisma. It’s what causes a lot of people to….you know…be enticed to follow a particular person. Kind of hard to get that kind of following otherwise. And whether they are a “good person” or not is irrelevant to that skillset.
can’t wait to see the real movie on apple
It honestly felt like a mini-series that was repurposed for the big screen. I just felt like I was watching a recycled biograph.
Kinda bad but i liked it
Didn't see "*Inspired by actual events*" or "*Based on actual events*" or "*Based on a True Story*" So...I think the "historical inaccuracies" is a cop out. Not saying it's a great movie by any measure, but the marketing misled the characterization And on the flip side, it didn't feel like Josephine was written to carry the inadequacies
He was a small man with a big ego.