Napoleon Review

Alright, so lets sum up what this movie is about, exactly.

Lets ignore the history, the lack of authenticity, the lack of accuracy, lets ignore ALL of that. I know a movie director will not get right the square formation or the specific maneuvers of the battle of Austerlitz, and frankly, Scott didnt even try. Watch Waterloo (1970) or even the 2002 TV SHOW for a better portrayal of that. Lets ignore that.

Lets focus on the basics.

Character development: A movie is a story, told about characters, characters who are historical figures, characters who we need to UNDERSTAND, to empathize with, to hate, to FEEL. We have to understand them in order to feel these things. Do we understand this Napoleon? No. Joaquin Pheonix is simply NOT the guy for this movie, I am sorry. He simply isnt. Do we get his family background, where he is from? A corsican backwater? Do we understand him? do we feel him? Do we know his family, his friends? his aspirations? his fears? do we know him? truly know him? No. We do not.

Is this movie about Josephine? No, do we understand her? still no.

WHAT THE HELL is this movie about? a lovestory between napoleon and josephine? IF so then why not change the name to be about this? Lets say that is the case, is this a good love story? Still NO. not pride and prejudice, not jane eyre, nope, not at all. Very little romance, very little engaging dialogue, very little quotable moments.

How about the plot? Its BORING. jesus christ is it boring. Its 6 or 7 battle scenes filled with stuff between napoleon and josephine and some other stuff that leaves things lacking. Plot is boring.

Audio is lacking, sometimes in the movie i could barely hear what the hell they were saying. Who did this shit? Is this a joke?

I am not going to go into the battles or accuracies or whatever. Who cares. I dont care about accuracy, i just want a good movie. This ISNT a good movie, period. You simply cannot tell a good story about Napoleon with only 2.5 hours. You could maybe do a good job if you just talk about say, Toulon, the Coup, Austerlitz, Waterloo, or maybe JUST about him and josephine, or maybe just about a small segment of his life. This movie tries to cover way too many things, battles, Napoleon, his rise and downfall, his relationship with josephine, and it falls flat on ALL OF THEM.

You want to demonize Napoleon? FINE, go ahead! Its ok to have an opinion about him, but your utter ridiculous distortion is just that, complete rubbish and distortion. Did you bother with his domestic reforms, the Napoleonic Code? or the infrastructure program? Or anything else he did besides military? Did you bother explaining why he became the emperor, the plebiscite? Did you bother explaining the assignation attempt on him ? What about his family? Did you bother with the family and the friends and marshals? No. You did not. You did not care about history, or Napoleon, nor did you bother with telling his story, because you dont care. You simply cannot be bothered with these details. Who cares right? After all, i wasnt there! Neither were you! WHO CARES ABOUT HISTORY!?!?!