Napoleon Review

Reviewing Ridley Scott’s newest historical epic

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Napoleon (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures)

(Author’s Note: The following piece is a review of the movie Napoleon and will naturally contain spoilers. If you want to avoid spoilers, I kindly suggest that you do not read on.)  

For obvious reasons, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon has captured the attention of the world. The thirst for excellent historical films is abundant, as few historical epics are made these days and even fewer films are made about the great men of history. Director Ridley Scott, famous for directing masterpieces like Gladiator, paired with the ever interesting and captivating historical figure Napoleon Bonaparte, is enough to make every historical movie connoisseur gush with excitement.  

The film is a historical biopic centered on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest military commander in history and one of the most intelligent political minds to ever live. In its entirety, the film stretches to about two hours and forty minutes and attempts to cover the French Emperor’s life from the French Revolution in 1793 to his death in exile on the island of Saint Helena in 1821. (This turns out to be a major issue that plays out to the detriment of the film, as we shall shortly see.)  

Notable film actors include Joaquin Phoenix, who stars as Napoleon, and Vanessa Kirby, who portrays his wife and lover, Josephine. Additionally, the film features scenes from six battles: the Siege of Toulon (1793), Pyramids (1798), Austerlitz (1805), Borodino (1812), and finally, the Battle of Waterloo (1815).  

Critiques

To begin, the film severely lacks cohesion and harmony. Scott jumps expeditiously from event to event while establishing no grounding or continuity throughout the film. One moment you see Napoleon in Paris putting down a royalist rebellion, and the next you see him in Egypt amongst the pyramids. Scott quickly transitions from the Coup of 18 Brumaire (the coup Napoleon launched against the Directory that made him First Consul of France) to Napoleon crowning himself emperor at his coronation, which was five years afterward. Scott almost immediately shifts from the end of the battle of Austerlitz to the Treaty of Tilsit, which was two years after the battle’s end. If that was not enough jumping, Scott skips from the burning of Moscow (1812) during Napoleon’s Russia campaign to his abdication as emperor (1814).  

Scott does not do the film any favors with this hurried approach, as he skips over a multitude of notable events that took place in the years he brushed aside. For instance, in the time between Moscow’s burning in 1812 and Napoleon’s abdication in 1814, at least twenty battles took place in the span of two years. Scott completely ignores the Battle of Leipzig, one of the most important defeats of Napoleon’s career. On the other hand, the frenzied and frenetic style that Scott adopts in directing this film leaves no room for the audience to discern any major character development in any of the individuals that were portrayed. For example, how did the momentous victory of the Battle of Austerlitz affect Napoleon? How did the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor affect him and his approach? None of this is shown in the film, and these negatives are the downsides of trying to fit thirty years of Napoleon’s life into a two-and-a-half-hour movie.  

Now we get to the uglier aspects of the movie. Most frustratingly, Scott managed to turn Napoleon into a pathetic, emotional, unconfident, whiny weakling with a depressed aura who always cries out for Josephine. In Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Napoleon, you get the sense of a depressed, removed, and borderline mentally unstable man who is vastly different from the person you read about in the history books. Not once throughout the film do you see the charismatic, self-confident, and extremely intelligent Napoleon whom hundreds of thousands of men willingly and enthusiastically followed into battle.  

Even more frustrating is the fact that the entire film more or less centers on Napoleon’s relationship with Josephine. At times, it seemed like she was the main character, not him. Unsurprisingly, this led to the point of absurdity. It felt as if Scott was trying to convey the message that Napoleon conquered primarily for her and that she was his entire world. Josephine says as much to Napoleon in the movie, declaring, “You are just a brute that is nothing without me.” Ridley Scott even has Napoleon respond, “I am just a brute that is nothing without you” to Josephine in a rather servile and pathetic manner.  

Scott goes as far as to suggest that Napoleon abandoned his troops in Egypt strictly because he learned of Josephine’s infidelity back at home. This, of course, is flat out historical inaccuracy. Yes, Napoleon was angry, but he did not leave Egypt because of that. In truth, he left Egypt for a variety of bigger reasons. The French government was weak and struggling mightily, Russia and Austria were bolstering their alliance, the British Navy recently destroyed the French Revolutionary Fleet at Aboukir, and the French Army was being defeated across Europe. Napoleon saw a rare opportunity to ascend to the top, and, sure enough, he rose to the position of First Consul through a coup not long after returning from Egypt. Suggesting that he left the theater of battle in the Middle East squarely because of Josphine is patently absurd in the extreme.  

To be sure, Josephine was a big part of Napoleon’s life, and he loved her in an extraordinary way. But she did not play a big and vast role in the way that Ridley Scott would have you believe.  

Even more disgraceful and preposterous was the way in which Napoleon was portrayed back home in France. For example, when Napoleon fussed with the British ambassador, he cried, “You think you're so great because you have boats!” When he was arguing with Josephine at dinner one evening, he declared, “Destiny has brought me this lamb chop,” before entering a food fight with his wife. On another occasion, Napoleon slapped Josephine in the face when she choked up reading her annulment statement.  

Overall, Scott’s depiction of Napoleon succeeded in making the emperor look like a weak, abusive, and angry little man.

Battle Scenes

Now we arrive at the battle sequences. There is more good than bad, and I will highlight some of both. In the beginning stages of the movie, Scott depicts the Siege of Toulon, which saw a young Napoleon lead French forces in a surprise attack during the night against a fort occupied by British and allied forces in the city of Toulon. The youthful Napoleon, depicted as frightened yet daring, succeeds in turning the cannons against the British Navy stationed there even after his horse was shot in the chest with a cannonball. Not everything about the battle was historically accurate, but it was nonetheless well executed and quite entertaining.  

Next is the 13 Vendemiaire, the royalist uprising that Napoleon was charged with quashing. Not much is shown aside from a few conversations Napoleon had with his French superiors beforehand and what transpires. Napoleon sets into place a row of cannons in the streets of Paris and unloads into the unruly crowd that was heading in his direction.

As is typically understood about the event, a good portion of the rebels were armed. But Scott does not depict any individual within the crowd as armed. What Scott meant to imply was that Napoleon simply obliterated an unarmed group of flag-waving protesters with cannon fire, no doubt wanting the audience to believe early on that Napoleon was an unfeeling, mass murdering monster.  

Scott also displayed the Battle of the Pyramids, or rather, a single cannonball being fired by Napoleon into the pyramids. That is quite literally all he shows of the famous battle. This is another historical error. Napoleon never attacked the pyramids, and the actual battle took place multiple kilometers away from the actual site where the pyramids were located.  

On the other hand, Scott never mentions why Napoleon launched an expedition to Egypt. He also never highlights the interesting fact that Napoleon invited over 160 scientists, intellectuals, mathematicians, and historians along with him so they could discover and learn more about the long and storied history of the regions in which they were traveling. Fascinatingly, Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt was responsible for the rediscovery of the Rosetta Stone, which is used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. But this was not fascinating enough for Ridley Scott to include in the film.  

The Battle of Austerlitz was another battle that was strongly executed on screen, notwithstanding the many liberties taken by the film crew regarding historical accuracy. Napoleon and his French Army, through the foggy and dreary winter weather, masterfully defeat the adversarial Russian and Austrian armies as they take them by surprise. As the opposing soldiers try to escape across the frozen lake near the end of the battle, Napoleon’s perfectly placed cannon fire pierces through the ice and sends a great many unfortunate Russians and Austrians to their deep, dark, and freezing deaths.

Austerlitz was one of the few bright spots in the film, not much of Borodino was shown, and the Battle of Waterloo towards the end of the film was good, but not great as it was loaded with yet more historical inaccuracies. In both Borodino and Waterloo, Scott has Napoleon charging the enemy on horseback straight into battle, which of course did not happen. He even laughably highlights British soldiers attempting to snipe Napoleon from afar at Waterloo.  

As for the Battle of Waterloo itself, it was well done to an extent. Scott shows the rain before the fight and shows the substance of the subsequent battle on the green and wet Belgian field. Napoleon’s cavalry attacks and artillery were not enough to defeat the formidable Duke of Wellington, whose army was bolstered later in the battle by a sizable force of Prussians under Blucher, who entered the battle on Napoleon’s flank.  

Scott displays the square-shaped formations of British troops tasked with defending against French cavalry and places each square formation side by side. In reality, the formations were placed diagonally in a checkerboard fashion from each other in order to avoid friendly fire instances. In addition, Scott showed the Prussian relief arriving on Napoleon’s left flank, not on the right flank. (The latter was historically accurate.)  

How Napoleon was portrayed coordinating battle was rather odd. During certain battle scenes, Scott depicts Napoleon as removed and indifferent. Scott has Napoleon periodically and begrudgingly give hand signals and head nods to his men as orders to carry out a certain action. But we knew Napoleon to be a man who handed out written orders, which were clear and concise as to what had to be done. The mindless, detached way in which he hands out instructions is dull and uninteresting. Not once do we see Napoleon at a table overlooking a map, formulating strategy with his generals. Scott shows little, if anything at all, of Napoleon’s tactics, maneuvering, or battle strategy during any of the featured battles. 

On another note, the whole of the movie is set in a dark, dreary, grey color filter. Excepting scenes from Egypt and Toulon, this depressing filter sets the tone throughout the entirety of the film, especially so in France and in the battles of Austerlitz, Borodino, and Waterloo. It is as if Scott wanted to drive home the point that the past was a dark, dreary, and uncolorful place and that Napoleon was a somber, cloudy figure who did not deserve to have a colorful and vibrant film made about him. It was all too depressing to watch.  

Conclusion 

As this review nears its end, I would be remiss if I did not highlight some of the film’s positives. The battle scenes were great, the presentation of the Coup of 18 Brumaire was hectic and exciting, the coronation scene was excellent, and the cinematography was on point. The detailed and complex uniforms displayed throughout the movie were impressive but would have been much more aesthetically vibrant had their color been allowed to shine. As for the actors, they did the best job they could have done considering the roles they were given. But otherwise, the film was a massive disaster and a vast disappointment.  

It was abundantly clear throughout the film that Scott did not care an inch for historical accuracy. Suggesting that Napoleon left his troops in Egypt because of Josephine's infidelity, implying that he escaped his exile in Elba because of Josephine, showing Napoleon shoot cannonballs at the pyramids, the various battle scene inaccuracies, and the terrible way in which Scott depicted Napoleon were enough to make any history-minded individual disheartened after watching the film.  

By all measures, the film was a historical hit piece against Napoleon. Scott succeeded in presenting Napoleon as a pathetic and deranged weakling who seldom, if ever, exhibited his military and political genius. To be sure, no movie today would glorify Napoleon, as it is simply not allowed for a film to glorify and celebrate one of the great men of history. But to attack Napoleon in this particular regard took it to the extreme and painted him in a horrible and unjustifiable light, and his historical reputation will suffer as a result. In truth, it was an unfair and erroneous attack against one of the greatest and most accomplished men who ever lived.  

If this all-out assault on Napoleon was not yet complete, at the end of the film Napoleon’s death was anticlimactic and mundane. He slumped over and died in a casual manner as he heard Josephine’s voice calling for him to join her, saying, “Next time I will be emperor and you will do what I say.” After the film was over, Scott saw fit to list the number of dead from all the major battles, as if Napoleon were entirely to blame for all the wars and deaths.  

In the end, the film was an incohesive and discombobulated mess riddled with historical inaccuracies and laughable absurdities. Although the film has redeeming qualities, they are simply no match for the overwhelming negatives. The biggest and clearest blunder of all was trying to fit over twenty years of Napoleon’s life into a two-and-a-half-hour movie. It simply was not achievable, and the fact that Scott attempted to achieve it anyway cost the film dearly regarding pacing, continuity, and cohesion. That, along with the blatant inaccuracies and the pathetic way in which Napoleon was portrayed, destroyed the potential greatness of this film before the cast and crew even arrived on set.