‘Napoleon’ review: Epic battle scenes make up for the overly stuffed script
“He came from nothing. He conquered everything”. That’s the tagline of Napoleon, the new Ridley Scott (Alien) movie. This is undoubtedly true for the French emperor, but the same can’t be said for the film. While there are definitely the epic battles scenes you come for, there’s also an overly stuffed and unbalanced script.
The movie opens with the most historical beheading ever. While Marie Antoinette walks towards the guillotine, a young Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) watches from the side-lines how the event unfolds. His France is filled with violence, struggles, political uncertainty, bloodshed and repression, which is precisely the kind of environment he needs to prove his thirst for power and domination. When he wins his first big battle — the Siege of Toulon, which is showed in such a detailed and stunning way — there’s no stopping him.
He becomes the commander of the army, an expert in war tactics and falls in love with Josephine (Vanessa Kirby). While Josephine has an extremely troubled background, which she is open about to Napoleon, both fall in love quickly. Their relationship may not be the most conventional one, but it works. She gets to lead the rich life she always wanted, and he finds a wife and a potential mother to his heir. However, the higher Napoleon’s political career soars, the more he’s away from home. He and Josephine keep in touch by writing letters to each other, but she certainly takes the liberty of her warrior being away for weeks and months on end. Napoleon’s family life is crumbling down even more when it becomes clear that Josephine can’t or doesn’t want to have children, and his strategic victories on the battlefield seem to be slowly ending simultaneously as well.
Napoleon is undoubtedly one of those warmongers with a very fascinating personal life and an action-packed professional career. It is no surprise that writer David Scarpa (The Last Castle) wants to include as many details and events as possible in this movie. There are probably many more in the rumoured four-hour-long cut that will be released on AppleTV+ soon. Scarpa’s script spans over almost thirty years. From the French Revolution in 1789 to Napoleon’s exile to St Helena in 1815, yes, it’s all in there, but because Scott and Scarpa want to focus on every single event in between, they present them very hasty.
You don’t get to immerse yourself in what you see on screen, except when the stunning battle scenes occur. It’s then that Scott reaffirms his status as a master in creating visually spectacular live-action scenes. The vibrant camerawork, the doomy and gloomy cinematography by Dariusz Wolski (The Last Duel) and the immense on-screen violence make these scenes stand out. While the attack of Austerlitz in 1805 will certainly leave a big impression on you, the Battle of Waterloo is the most jaw-dropping scene in this movie. One of the deadliest battles in history and the end of the Napoleonic Wars is full of energy, power and ferociousness. How the soldiers get into reformations shows Scott’s immense technical skills and passion for grandiose scenes. He never shies away from showing us the true nature of wars.
However, the non-battle scenes are the downfall of this movie. Whether it’s conversations between Napoleon and his political opponents or between him and Josephine, the dialogues are cut short because Scott wants to present you with the next major event in Napoleon’s life. This results in a film that can’t find its rhythm at all. You also don’t get enough information about particular events or Napoleon’s choices to understand everything that’s going on in this movie. Whether or not that’s a problem is up to you, but if this movie had just focussed on France’s dark and complicated history, the French Revolution and Napoleon’s role in all of this, it would have been so much richer in every single way.
There are certainly tonal and rhythmic problems, but luckily, the movie can count on two stunning lead performances. Phoenix (Walk the Line) brings both sides of Napoleon magnificent to life. We see him as the formidable conqueror who certainly knows what he wants but also as the more childish and unsure man.
While Phoenix can undoubtedly stand his ground in this movie with his magnificent acting, he becomes even better when he faces Kirby (Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One). She adds so much grace, female power and dominance to Napoleon. While her character might not be explored enough, the secretive vibe around Josephine certainly gives this movie a dangerous and intriguing side. The scenes between Phoenix and Kirby are heartbreaking but fun simultaneously, especially when you see how clumsy and inexperienced Napoleon is at flirting. He might easily conquer the battlefield, but conquering someone’s heart proves much trickier.
Napoleon excels with stunning cinematography, epic battles and splendid acting, but it lets itself down with the incoherent and unbalanced script. Usually, the significant risks Scott takes pay off immensely, resulting in mind-blowing features, but that might not be entirely the case this time.
Napoleon is out now in UK cinemas courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing