At times, this feels like Ridley Scott in top form, directing sweeping, epic historical battles. At times, it feels like an absurdist black comedy à la The Great. (My entire theater lost it at "You think you're so great because you have BOATS!") But most of the time, it feels like an entire season of television hopelessly compressed into 2.5 hours. As a result, I understood little and cared even less.
Maybe the 4-hour cut will be better, but I doubt it. The sheer number of things it touches on - characters, political maneuvers, relationships, battles - seems like it would take 10 hours to cover properly.
"Destiny has brought me here. Destiny has brought me this lamb chop!"
Like a tour of the optometrist's: there's a lot of grind and not enough spectacles.
Ridley Scott made the dubious decision to focus the lens of Napoleon Bonaparte's biopic on his love life rather than his military expertise and failures.
So, instead of examining his expansion into the Americas and the political savior faire required to unify a divided France (by, for example, naming the Place des Vosges in Paris after the first French region to send taxes to the empire), we get overlong scenes of him having bad sex with his wife while both of them wear all the clothes.
Not to mention, and I won't because I'm alone in this, that the movie is made entirely in English, which is the intellectual equivalent of watching a civil war movie where the North and the South run around speaking German.
Nope, sadly, instead of a film worthy of an emperor we get a pile of reenactments based on some famous paintings.
The fights and battle scenes were nice. However, the romance scenes were really cringe (that it was actually almost uncomfortable to watch) - was Napoleon really like this or are they exaggerating it?
The performance of Phoenix was really weird when he was talking about fighting at the Toulon port, was really monotoned for some reason but his voice acting got better as the show went on.
I want to watch that opening scene on repeat.
But in the 2.5 hour version of this movie, I failed to make any connection to any of the characters. So watching it, it was just a bunch of stuff happening. I felt no investment or reason to feel anything during good times nor bad for any of the characters. Those things were just things happening.
Hopefully the 4+ hour version of this movie fixes that, because as it stands I was expecting more. This movie is a bit of a let down.
Ridley Scott. The king of epic. A must watch for anyone who loves epic battles.
I don't know what to think of Napoleon because I haven't done my research, and this movie seems to be too nice in all parts. I learnt a lot, yet I could have learnt more. It should have included a little information on who each person was the same way little facts popped up on the screen telling us the location, year, or how many died. Heartbreaking how more than 3 million French people danced into their deaths, simply because a man had the power to. What's even more heartbreaking is times haven't really changed.
Besides the writing, the production was phenomenal. Apple TV is becoming one of my favourites. The acting was atrociously good. The score was tense, and Joaquin Phoenix was legendary as per.
Is this a good movie? No not really. Are there well written characters? Not in my opinion. Did I leave understanding Napoleon or Josephine? Not particularly.
Was this movie fucking awesome? YES!
Will I watch the 4 hour Apple+ cut? 100% yes.
I'm really torn about "Napoleon". On the one hand, I'm glad to be able to finally see another epic historical drama with high production values in the cinema, but on the other hand, I didn't particularly enjoy how it was realized. This is not due to the spectacular battle sequences. They are massive, impress with the use of numerous extras, and are the clear highlight of the film.
However, covering all stages of Napoleon's rise and fall was a huge mistake. Instead of focusing on a few key periods, the movie feels more like skimming through a Wikipedia entry. On top of that, from a historical perspective, there are some really hair-raising creative liberties that director Ridley Scott takes.
I was also rather disappointed with the acting. Joaquin Phoenix is definitely a master of his craft, but here he somehow never found the right approach. It seems as if Phoenix never really knew how he wanted to play the general and dictator. Vanessa Kirby, on the other hand, is quite convincing as Napoleon's wife, Joséphine, but the chemistry between the two is rather poor.
All in all, I think it's worth seeing "Napoleon" at the movies. The battle sequences alone are reason enough. But I had hoped for more from a historical epic by Ridley Scott. I will probably give the announced four-and-a-half-hour director's cut a chance at some point, but I'm not really confident that it will be able to dispel my criticisms.
This is not a movie or a biography. It'a visualisation of some timeline events. But it lacks characters, motivations, and plot.
I was really looking forward to Ridley Scott‘s next film but this was honestly quite a snooze fest. The performances are good, the battles are well done but the overall arc just did nothing for me.
I dare say that a simple film. It is true that when narrating a biopic you must assimilate to reality, but very linear when it comes to blending in with the film. You don't empathize with the protagonist, you don't get tense, you don't get sad, you don't get excited, or you don't have fun. The only thing that saves the film is the visuals. Perfect on a visual level, beautiful shots, splendid sequences. A Colossal movie. As for the acting, I would say that Joaquín is not in his best role, he is not a difficult character to play in my opinion, he does not bring out his best version.
Great but not fantastic. Full marks for the battle scenes, costumes, sets and attention to detail plus the fact Ridley filmed this movie in 62 days. It held my attention and was not dull by any means. However, it didn’t quite hit the mark with me, as much as The Last Duel or Gladiator. Rushed? Possibly. Having said that, perhaps the extra hour in the director’s cut on Apple TV+ will fill those holes for me. Undeniably a Ridley Scott movie of epic proportions. 7/10
utterly boring... I turned it off with an hour to go.
What an incredibly boring movie. Totally lost interest after an hour with no incentive to carry on.
I always thought Napoleon to be an interesting character but after watching this I couldn't care less. He rather seems to be some kind of idiot. Also, the events in this movie are rushed through in a manner that is hard to follow and therefore hard to connect with. The only positive I can offer from this movie are the costumes and the sets.
According to imdb this movie made 214m$ worldwide. With a budget of about 200m this is a colossal failure. And I totally understand why.
I will ignore the historical inaccuracies, false character portrayals and the english speaking sinse this is Hollywood after all and they can do whatever the hell they want with it.
I was never sold on any of the characters or performances. Joaquin Phoenix does some overacting and I still don't know who his character is by the end. Poor character study. Phoenix and Kirby have no chemistry. Their relationship is so boring and they focus on it to no avail because I have no idea what makes this relationship tick.
There's undeniably some comedy incorporated into the movie at times but I was laughing in some serious scenes—it's camp! You can tell this was intended as a 4h movie because the editing and pacing are flagrantly bad. It's as if important scenes are missing. The 4h version could solve a lot of these problems, sure, but I doubt most people are going to rewatch this. So why release this version in theaters?? I don't like the look of the movie either, it's all so... blue.
The score is nothing out of the ordinary but it's good. The costumes look great. The action sequences are hit and miss. They look great (except for the blue filter), the set pieces are memorable and epic but I find the sequences short-lived. Edited maybe? In addition, the action loses a lot of weight because of the camp, rushed story and poor characters. Overall, Napoleon is one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
Unfortunately a very superficial movie without much suspense. In addition, the movie has many errors that have already been corrected by historians.
I feel like I paid 13 bucks to see a teaser version of the 4 hour Apple+ director's cut.
I do want to see the directors cut. and I would probably subscribe to Apple+ just for a month to see it. So yeah they suckered me in.
This looks like something how all historical stories should be told. The new documentary style. It's difficult to say if it will really be good, but the trailer is magnificently done!
This was an epic movie on a large scale with big time actor Phoenix portraying Napoleon very well. It was more the story and showing of Napoleon's character and personal life rather than the historical impact and accuracy of the events that occurred around that time in France. The audience really had to know the history in order to follow the plot as the long length film scrolled through about 30 years. That was the only negative as the main premise seemed to be centered around Napoleon himself. The filming and character development is what kept the audience on the edge of their seat as well as the fun drama filmed France that was made out to be a wirlwind.
Napoleon is impressive in its size but underwhelming in its substance. Individual scenes are phenomenal, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Strangley, the film is simultaneously too long and too short.
The average score is a 6? How?!?!
Other than epic battle scenes, in particular Wellington's famous maneuver that made the French calvary easy pickings for his infantry, the movie SUCKS.
The love story betweenJosephine and Napoleon comes off as a whore and her john because it is poorly written, poorly acted and there is zero chemistry between the actors. Just wasted and disgusting, especially the using of the same song from the Colin Firth/Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice love scenes. They couldn't choose another song? Couldn't find anything more appropriate for the couple at hand? Couldn't find something more sexual since they definitely overplayed the hell out of it being a disgusting show of sex rather than love. Strange also because they turned Josephine's sacrifice into a joke punchline rather than her true admiration for Napoleon.
I usually love Joaquin in the roles he plays, but this is dismal. He has the look (kudos to wardrobe) but he lacks the fire, passion and desperation to be recognized that Napoleon had. His lack luster performance may be because he admitted he knew nothing about Napoleon, but FFS THAT'S YOUR JOB to do the work to know.
What is most infuriating is that every effort seems to be made to make Napoleon look like a shoddy low rank officer who just got lucky. He was a mastermind of tactics in his time, but that seems to be minimized with pass over reading of what he might have been thinking rather than showing some significance to his skill. Except for the comment where he is told Alexander had studied his previous battles, you wouldn't get his historical significance in this respect at all. So they literally ignore his true significance in history other than one sentence. It's dismal.
AND ON TOP OF THAT, Wellington is almost portrayed as the lead role in the movie in his scenes... Again just disregard for Napoleon's tactical significance but an over hype of the movie with his name of the man who would defeat him.... WHO STUDIED Napoleon's tactics inside out to come up with a plan. Who had significant losses to that end, that he knew going in he was going to suffer.
UGGGGHHHHH. I watched it in 3 pieces and still thought it a waste of time. I would've been infuriated if I had spent the money to see it in the theater. If not for the battle scenes the movie would be a ZERO.
3.7 out of 10.
Scott seems to have been severely misguided here, in a bizarre parallel to his chosen subject. Basically, if you want 2 and a half hours of Joaquin Phoenix being a sniveling little incel, I recommend Beau is Afraid or Inherent Vice Instead. Also, who pissed on the lens?
It was like a docu-series without the documentary or series. They skipped so many large moments in his life and provided so little context behind what was currently going on that I got bored. The Battle of Friedland was the only enjoyment I got from this movie.
The director is a bitter old Englishman… there’s nothing we can do:notes::fr:
A very cinematic-feeling movie, albeit boring in a lot of its runtime. The attempt to focus on Napoleon's love life rather than his military journey made it difficult to rate this movie any higher.
Impressive battle sequences aside, 'Napoleon' fails to deliver.
Just my own opinion, of course, but this Ridley Scott movie just didn't click. I didn't feel attached to what I was watching, I wasn't hooked on the events that were occurring onscreen. Joaquin Phoenix gives a solid enough performance, I don't have any complaints with him - nor Vanessa Kirby.
It's just the film in general that disappointed. None of the non-battle scenes did anything for me, it's all so heavily forgettable. The added humour/quirkiness from the titular character felt out of place, or at least wasn't blended with the more serious stuff all that well.
The long run time, whilst certainly overdone, isn't actually all that much of a hindrance - it's moreso how poorly the run time is utilized. I, fwiw, have zero issue with historical inaccuracies. Judging it solely as a film, I highly doubt I'll want to rewatch this anytime soon unfortunately.
2/10
One of the worst movies I have ever seen. It gets a 2 only because of the great battle scenes. Here is a little text I send in discord with other people.
Joaquin was okay, have seen better performances from him. The time frames where strange, the children of Josephine just disappeared. They didn’t show any political points of napoleon, the things that he did for most of Europe. For instance his brother was king here in the Netherlands, didn’t show a fk thing. Some parts where long and good, and then they just rushed 10 years into 10 minutes. The war scenes on the battle fields were beautiful, especially the one in Russia I loved on the ice. They had so much opportunity to make a amazing movie, you even had 2.5 hours and this is what it became? Who tf aproved this:joy: but I’ve heard the directors cut is better, maybe that will change my mind a bit.
For the first time in my life I thought about leaving in the theater before the movie ended. I stayed to see if it got better, it didn’t. Waste of my time…
The movies good, great battle scenes and photography, however, the film suffers from a weak screenplay, written by David Scarpa, that fails to explore the complexity and contradictions of Napoleon's personality and legacy. The film depicts Napoleon as a hero and a visionary, glossing over his flaws and mistakes, such as his tyranny, his wars, and his disastrous invasion of Russia.
For the photography and some good scenes, worth the watch!
Ego needs to be satirized.
Joaquin Phoenix. That should be enough to make you run for the door immediately. He has almost no acting chops, is unlikable as both a person and as a character and frankly has no business being in show business (neither do I, by the way, he's better than I am at acting).
This tries to be so epic but turns out being so grinding, historically inaccurate, pandering and while it's sometimes has some epic scenes, it really makes you pay to see them.
I really hope there's a 4-hour director's cut out there somewhere, because there's not enough time to cover Napoleon properly. The film comes across like a PowerPoint version of his life.
The film seems to be missing context, character growth, tension, and charisma. It seemingly jumps from one event to the next, without discussing Napoleon's origins, motives, or strategy.
For someone so beloved by the French, they don't really show much here. They fail to show WHY he was so beloved, even after being exiled the first time. They also fail to show his political accomplishments. I don't know they have Joaquin Phoenix play him so flat and one-dimensional. It was interesting to have more of the Napoleon & Josephine relationship, but then their sex scenes are goofy. This film could've been so much better.
A movie without a clear direction, I think they should've focused on a smaller amount of time to build the characters better
Very superficial movie that is neither a history-focused piece nor a story that properly explores the characters. Ridley Scott should have done a 12 episode series instead.
beyond bad. It was extremely boring and trite.
Joaquin is a fantastic performer. We all know this, we've seen it several times. There are films where the actor is separated from the character in which you forget that it's "so-and-so" playing the role. For example, Heath Ledger's 'Joker', Javier Bardem's 'Anton Chigurh' and Daniel Day-Lewis' 'Lincoln'.
For Napoleon, Joaquin is simply himself in Napoleonic attire. It was just not convincing. Perhaps it's the story that is to blame which is... boring. We spend most of the time focusing on Napoleon's love life with breaks in between that give us only a glimpse of the epic battles he was a part of. Even the end credits begin by telling us his battle history and body count but... THE FILM BARELY FOCUSED ON THAT!
I wanted this to be an epic biopic on a pivotal character in world history but sadly we did not get that.
TBH... I'm moderately disappointed. The entire movie felt like a speedrun of a biography. At no point did I feel like I'm watching an epic; not even during the final battle. Pretty meh!
I had really high hopes for this movie, knowing how Ridley Scott can do historical if he sets his mind to it (Kingdom of Heaven, Gladiator). OK he can play fast and lose with historical accuracy on the characters and even the technical details, but by and large I find his movies very good overall.
Enter Napoleon and seriously, like WTF? The focus of the movie was on his relationship with Josephine (a story that didn’t need to be told if ever there was one), meanwhile doing a whistle stop blitz tour through the history of France during his time, paying scant attention to any detail, to say it’s superficial is an understatement! Militarily, aside from the dates and countries involved, Scott hasn’t played fast and loose this time, he just threw the books in the bin and made it all up! Again, none of the key characters that impacted him from the military are portrayed at all. In fact there is virtually zero development of any character in the whole movie. It’s just a montage of stuff featuring Napoleon, some of which happened, some that might have and the rest, total fantasy.
This movie had a good actor in joaquin Phoenix not being given correct instruction on how to play the charismatic Napoleon ,he even said before the film he didn't know how to play the part.
Fell asleep watching it. Enough said.
The whole life of Napoleon in 1 film? Here the series would last for seasons. Scott also guessed, shifting the focus to the fight with Josephine, and not attempts to climb France and conquer the world. What you expect from the film is presented only as a set of luxurious postcards, even battles . But what about, “We were in a firefight for two days...”? Now, I’m afraid we won’t see anything real about an extraordinary person and an interesting era any time soon. After all, R. Scott misfired
There are some great battle scenes, but overall, this story seemed rushed. I was extremely bored through the entirety of the movie. Plus, my god, did they need to show so many of the horses dying.
Feels like Ridley phoned it in…
Surely this is not the tone Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix were going for while making a historical epic Napoleon movie. Were they? Surely not! Were they in on the joke? Has Ridley Scott created a new genre; Biographical Comedy with House of Gucci and Napoleon.
The movie was so bad... I can't even express how bad it was.
It felt like it bad comedy skit that tried to be serious at times.
For a history movie... Not enough history.
For a war movie... It made a mocking off war.
For a drama... Too much bad attempts at comedy.
What the hell was this even supposed to be... The only good thing... And I'll be generous for the sake of it... The CG was alright.
I was expecting better than this. Was not a formidable movie, I was expecting more war scenes, but this movie is more about the romance life of napoleon. This is an opera soup of napoleon
Boring. Didn’t focus on the right things
Rated a Connor 5, normal 6
It focused way to much on boring love story. This man had a way better story than this movie shows. Don't waste your money going to see it.
Yesterday I saw Napoleon. Superficial, infantile. Neither historical nor war. A cut-and-paste sum of moments from his life with no unity of interpretation other than showing an unstable man in the face of the "seriousness and kindness" of the Anglo-Saxons.

It was long, but I wouldn't say too long - it needed to be to actually tell the story.
Wouldn't ever say it's one of my top 50 movies, but it was interesting. They must have of had a ton of extras and the battle scenes were quite spectacular.
7.5/10
I have lost all hope in Gladiator 2.
It should be a great film... but somehow it just misses the mark. I fell asleep. I might come back to it to see the end, but I probably won't.
Ostensibly sets out to mock and ridicule the man rather than provide an authentic account of his achievements, and curiously lingers on the relatively dull marital angle of his journey. That will invariably make the characters unsympathetic to most viewers, leading to a boring cinematic experience outside of the cutting-edge warfare reenactments.
For a less caricatured, fairly historically accurate and politically intriguing portrayal, look into the French 2002 mini-series, though as a lower budget release, don't expect shiny battle sequences. The first project to combine both those things is still up for grabs.
An average film that portrays the story of Napoleon, although in a somewhat light way in several aspects. The narrative could be more focused, eliminating much of the romance that seems unnecessary, and incorporating more political elements, which are crucial in Napoleon's story. Furthermore, some inventions and changes to the plot can seem a bit gratuitous. In short, a representation that leaves something to be desired in several aspects.
Last word of Napoleon Bonaparte, "French Army Josephine"
Not so bad as people say. when you go to the cinema you spect entertaiment and this film brings that to you. Great actors and outstanding photgraphy
You can skip this, even the battles are mehhh
Garbage in every way. Don’t watch
As someone not knowledgeable about Napleonic history, this movie still somehow feels like it gets almost everything about Napoleon wrong. The swings between his personal life and major battles are incongruous, the political machinations surrounding his rise and fall are never given proper context, and most of his personality seems to be invented.
Contrasted with Oppenheimer, about whom I also know little, this portrayal of Napoleon feels markedly inauthentic. The battle scenes are generally engaging and well-constructed, but don't make up for the sense that as a docudrama this is replete with gross inaccuracies.
It’s retarded but thats the appeal of the movie, go read a book if you want real history, you nerdy dweeb.
Despite the controversy, this film is really cool. The scoring is also great because it always manages to increase the tension in every battle scene.
However, it's a shame that Ridley Scott's version of Napoleon is too much towards romance rather than "history". Maybe if you like romance, this won't be a problem, but the problem is that Napoleon was better known for his prowess in war. With a duration of almost 3 hours, the history presented by Ridley Scott is not explored very deeply.
Why someone would willingly do this to the story of napoleon, I don't know. Having so much to put the light on, either be the relationship with Josephine, or the incredible war carrier, or the battles, the logistic, I don' t know. There was so much, and the story was reduced to winning scenes and sad fucks moments.
I guess I'm the only one here that enjoyed it for what it is (not a filmed Wikipedia article)
The cinematography was very pleasing, and the style was overall nice and accurate to that period. However, the screenplay is absolutely terrible with so many holes that it makes the movie hard to watch sometimes.
Pretty meh all round. Waterloo is given 15 minutes ( which is outstanding) with most of film about his love life and that he was a knob.
Watching it makes you wonder when was the last time Scott actually made a good film
Shout by FrankBlockedParent2023-11-28T22:43:52Z
Basically a 2hr 30min montage!