'Napoleon' film review: Underwhelming biopic paints fuzzy portrait of infamous emperor
Ridley Scott's take on the infamous French dictator is both grand in scale but disappointingly reductive in 'Napoleon' (in theaters Nov. 22).
In short: The rise and fall of military commander and French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Stars Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby.
Despite breathtaking battle sequences and an engrossing lead performance by Phoenix, 'Napoleon' is a tonally disjointed and meandering chore that gives the audience whiplash as it lurches from one historical event to the next. Scott's latest falls into the familiar trappings of biopics that lack character-based focus ... instead, 'Napoleon' just hits the bullet points of Bonaparte's Wikipedia biography, while mixing in some odd character comedy.
The best biopics don't try to tell any historical figures entire life - instead, films like 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' 'Lincoln' and 'Schindler's List' specifically focus on one event, allowing the film to reveal how historic pressures shaped the protagonist, and why their protagonists made choices that changed or defined history. With a loosely-knit "story" that spans more than two decades, 'Napoleon' is a string of reenactments of key moments in post-Revolution France ... masquerading as a shallow character study of a dictator.
Taking a step back from this film's daunting runtime reveals 'Napoleon' is generally just a series of historic events, with some oddly constructed character-driven scenes peppered throughout the film. It's oddly plot- and character-driven with such lackluster, half-hearted energy that its lack of commitment to either story driver leaves the overall film all the weaker.
On one hand, 'Napoleon' tries to depict a man wholly consumed by his obsession with Josephine and his increasing political power. This side of the film fleshes out Bonaparte as a husband and leader, with Scott making the deliberate choice to let Phoenix revel in some low-key silliness. On the other hand, 'Napoleon' is a throwback to grand and epic war cinema: it's brutal, unrelenting and gruesome. In this age of austere, bloodless CGI war sequences, 'Napoleon' stands as a firm reminder that pristine green screen effects cannot compete with practical battle scenes in conveying the horrors of war.
'Napoleon' fundamentally tries to depict Bonaparte as a dangerous military commander ... who led millions of men to their deaths. And quite simultaneously the script also paints the Emperor as a brooding, insecure cuckhold compelled by hubris. And its the marriage of these two thesis points that doesn't work as one well-told story. The overall film doesn't convey how Napoleon the husband informed his decisions as Napoleon the general (and vice versa). If the script had woven these two parallel narratives together into one cohesive narrative, 'Napoleon' could have been great. Sadly, the film instead elects to just awkwardly jump from the story of an ineffectual husband to the story of a conqueror. And it's these jarring alleged "transitions" (for lack of a better word) result in a movie with almost no balance of tone.
Scott's decidedly low-key comedic take, effectively reducing Napoleon to his insecurities, is a choice and it might have worked ... were it not for the fact that this tone is such a strong contrast to the stark and brutal "Napoleon the war general" thread. It's as if Scott directed two, very different films that undermine Napoleon as a man and as a leader - and just edited them together into the same film. Such bizarre shifts in tone would be more forgivable if it's clear Scott had filmed four hours worth of material - but tried to cram it all into a two-hour flick - but the fact that the film is close to three hours long, yet never establishes a clear tonal direction is frankly astonishing. And apparently there is a four-hour cut of 'Napoleon' that will be released at some point, which begs the question: why not just release that cut first? This 2.5-hour cut somehow feels sloppy, rushed and overly long - a near impossible feat of contradictions.
Final verdict: Interspersed between breathtaking and epic battle sequences of the Napoleonic Wars, Ridley Scott's ambitious biopic is mired by half-hearted satire of the French emperor. If only this character study was sharper and more decisive, 'Napoleon' could have made a strong and clear-throated statement - instead, this unfocused biopic just renders a faint idea of his conquests and failings ... by just reenacting historic events without particularly insightful character analysis.
Score: 2.5/5
'Napoleon' opens in theaters nationwide on Nov. 22. This historical biopic has a runtime of 158 minutes and is rated R for strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content and brief language.
