by James Coulter
I am not a professional movie critic. Most of the films I watch and review are either superhero flicks or animated children’s movies. So, admittedly, reviewing a serious historical drama like Napoleon is far out of my wheelhouse.
Normally, I don’t watch dramas—or historical dramas, for that matter. I didn’t even watch Oppenheimer! So, I have no real frame of reference by which to fairly judge this movie. I cannot tell whether Napoleon stands on its own as a good historical drama. The best I can do is offer my honest opinion.
So, what’s my opinion? Frankly, Napoleon is about as “entertaining” as reading a history textbook—and not the fun kind with pictures and graphs and charts, but the boring kind that is older than dirt, filled with musty pages upon pages of un-interrupted text with archaic vocabulary, outdated information, and unapologetic racism.
Do I even need to bother summarizing the film’s plot? It’s a historical drama about Napoleon Bonaparte. If you’ve ever taken a history class, you’ve likely had a lesson about the guy. This movie is essentially a comprehensive historical lecture brought to life, detailing the important plot points of Napoleon’s career, starting as a French soldier working his way up the military, meeting and marrying his wife Josephine, being crowned Emperor of France, and fighting his many battles from the Invasion of Russia to his defeat in Waterloo before inevitably being exiled.
While the film undoubtedly does a decent job telling Napoleon’s story, even with a two-and-a-half-hour running time, the movie feels rather rushed, hastily glossing over the important details of Napoleon’s life.
As one other online critic explained: “The narrative gets spread so thin and key events get so oversimplified that a lot of the time you don’t know what’s going on or why. It’s more of a whistle-stop tour of the big moments in Napoleon’s life, giving you enough to understand what is happening at the precise moment, but lacking the wider context needed to explain why it matters so much.”
Many historians have criticized the movie for its numerous historical inaccuracies. Since I’m not a history buff, I neither know nor care enough about real history to tell. I do know this movie, first and foremost, is a movie, and as such, liberties are expected to be taken for the sake of cinematic narrative. So long as a movie is good, no one will care about minor inaccuracies. Alas, a good movie this is not.
To be fair, the cinematography is undoubtedly excellent. This movie was directed by Ridley Scott, a man who has been directing films longer than I have been alive. So, of course, someone with that much experience under his belt has to try hard to make a bad movie. Plenty of the action scenes, especially the battles, are invigorating, with the copious amount of blood and gore more than earning this movie its R-rating.
However, where Napoleon falls flat is with the acting—or rather, lack thereof!—by the titular character. There’s a joke about Hollywood writing called the “Sexy Lamp Test.” To wit, if you can replace a female character in a movie with a sexy lamp and everything else about the movie remains unaffected, you have written a bad female character. Napoleon, on the other hand, could easily have its lead character replaced by a marble bust of Napoleon and nothing else about the film would be affected. In short, this movie made a bad Napoleon character.
Ridley Scott took one of Europe’s most colorful larger-than-life rulers, infamous for his boisterous, over-the-top personalities and cunning charisma, and sucks all the emotion out of him, leaving Joaquin Phoenix to give a consistently deadpan performance throughout the film. Again, a marble bust of Napoleon would have offered a more spirited performance.
Good chunks of the movie are dedicated to showcasing the complicated romantic relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, but compared to Joaquin Phoenix’s consistently emotionless performance, Anakin and Padme’s relationship in the Star Wars prequels feels more passionate. What else can you say about a character who lacks passion, especially egregiously so in scenes where he’s supposed to act passionately?
For example, one scene plays out Napoleon’s most infamous moments where he seizes the crown during his coronation and crowns himself the Emperor of France. Such a performance should have Napoleon announcing his audacious move with a boisterous air. Instead, he makes his proclamation with as much enthusiasm as someone placing an order for plain grits at Denny’s.
Another scene has Napoleon return to France from his exile. He is greeted by soldiers aiming their loaded bayonet-tipped guns at him. Through an impromptu speech, he convinces them to let him return to their country and reclaim his throne. Such a scene should exhibit the charisma of a dictator. Instead, Napoleon pleads with the soldiers with the same tone one would read someone a number from a phone book.
In short, there have been plenty of movies and television specials that have done a good job of telling the story of Napoleon Bonaparte. Ridley Scott has made better movies. Joaquin Phoenix has acted in better roles. This isn’t one of them. Napoleon is a hard pass!
