NAPOLEON

pretty much same, just felt flat for me, waterloo felt rushed, felt like it was running over time, so cut short, but other parts felt drawn out. also his promotions were lighting fast, before we knew it he was emperor.
historically was a decent watch, as a movie overall, tbh was bored, but the battles were pretty well done n enjoyable
 
This really needs the uncut release on Apple TV or whatever it’s supposed to come on. Couldn’t watch it in one sitting though.
 
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Napoleon – A lavish production like a big coffee table book. Great filming, acting. sound and colour with beautiful sets and costumes. More about his relationship with his wife then the man and the history.

A shame to have historical inaccuracies. He did not attack the pyramids, he did not meet Wellington, he did not lead a cavalry charge and there was no lake at Austerlitz. There are numerous others.

It feels like at set of scenes stuck together, lots of bone but little body.

Maybe the long directors cut will give us a fuller picture of the man and history. 6/10
 
Cosimo said:
A shame to have historical inaccuracies. He did not attack the pyramids, he did not meet Wellington, he did not lead a cavalry charge and there was no lake at Austerlitz. There are numerous others.
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I hate how they make stuff up.
For me one of the worst biopics is Bohemian Rhapsody, from the day I first saw Queen supporting Mott The Hoople I was a massive fan and read every interview with them until I got bored with them around 1980.
The amount of inaccuracies in that film is criminal and people who make these biopics should be ashamed.
I said before, my Brother in Law is Prof Charles Esdaile, Google him. He is one of the World's leading Napoleon experts and taught it at Liverpool Uni. He was a phone call away from making an accurate biopic
 
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Rather late to the party, I finally caught up with this film via Apple TV. Oh dear.

Easily the worst historical / war / biopic film I've ever seen. Such a lazy, biased, cliched and frankly bizarre portrayal of Napoleon. Crammed full of historical inaccuracies. A truly terrible script with plenty of miscasting, not least Joaquin Phoenix. A total failure to capture the military tactics and political machinations of the day. Utterly incoherent storytelling. Even the CGI and sound was sub par.

Perhaps you could forgive much of the inaccuracies if it was a well crafted film. But it wasn't even a story well told. Given that Napoleonic history is rich with amazing true stories, why make stuff up? It's baffling.

Anyone wanting a vastly better depiction of the period should check out the old epics such War & Peace (1956) and Waterloo (1970) which stand the test of time remarkably well and are both freely viewable on YouTube.

To be frank, most amateur re-enactments are done better than this film. Check out some of the head cam footage from the 200th Waterloo Anniversary in 2015, it's quite incredible. It really gives you a taste of Napoleonic warfare that Ridley Scott utterly failed to portray. Even though they were firing blanks, the noise and fog of war is staggering, something that Ridley Scott totally failed to get across.

Can only begin to imagine what a fantastic mini series another director might have been able to make with the $200m that Scott spaffed on this.
 
Cern said:
Ah, I think I've seen a few of his chats about Waterloo and Napoleonic era on YouTube. I'd be interested to hear his take on the Napoleon movie, if he's seen it?
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It wasn't far off what you wrote :)
This is what upsets me about biopic films, there are experts in their field but they'd rather use somebody who has a slight interest helping them.

From his Facebook page when it came out and I've noticed there's lots more since.

Charles Joseph Esdaile​


OK folks, I guess that at least some of you may be interested in my views on Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’. Sorry if you don’t want to hear them: if so, you can always just scroll on down.
Where to start? Well, first off, there is the issue of how Napoleon is presented overall. Here I don’t have that many problems. The horrid fellow comes over as a brooding figure - a war-monger indeed - driven by a mixture of insecurity and sexual desire and, while this is clearly a massive over-simplification, I can certainly live with the basic idea: indeed, the fact that Andrew Roberts (author of the thoroughly obnoxious ‘Napoleon the Great’) hates the film is very much a point in Scott’s favour.
The devil, however, lies in the detail. Anyone attempting a massive biopic of the sort we have here is going to have to select and simplify: much will have to be left out and much will have to be told in such a way as to make it easily accessible. I am not, then, going to be among those complaining that there is nothing about this, that and the other: a lot is indeed left out, some of it very important, but this was inevitable.
So what is my problem? The issue is not what is not there, but rather what is. As a friend of mine has said, with Bondarchuk’s ‘Waterloo’, we all had fun trying to spot the errors, but with Scott’s ‘Napoleon’, it is more a question of trying to spot the things which are right. So no, Napoleon never met Wellington, never bombarded the Pyramids and never led a cavalry charge, while the Battles of Austerlitz and Waterloo did not happen in the way shown (the ponds at the former, for example, were only 2-3 feet deep). Nor did Baker rifles come with built-in telescopes or every other man carry a colour. There are some great vignettes - Napoleon’s coronation is an example - but much of what one sees is just ridiculous.
To all this, many of you will say ‘So what? “Napoleon” is just a movie: it is Hollywood, entertainment.’ I would disagree - as most people get most of their history from films, producers and directors surely have a duty to operate within certain parameters - but let us set this aside. Ridley Scott being Ridley Scott, one might at least expect great cinema, but the fact is that ‘Napoleon’ isn’t even that: to be blunt, it is poorly acted, poorly written and poorly put together - indeed, no-one who is not a Napoleonic specialist who I have spoken to or heard from has ended up as anything other than totally confused.
So there you go: save your money and g out your DVD’s of ‘Waterloo’, not least because Rod Steiger is an infinitely better Napoleon than Joachim Phoenix. As people probably know, I don’t like Bondarchuk’s efforts either, but, compared with Scott’s, they are positively brilliant.
 
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SexyGreyFox said:
It wasn't far off what you wrote :)
This is what upsets me about biopic films, there are experts in their field but they'd rather use somebody who has a slight interest helping them.
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Thanks for posting Charles Joseph Esdaile's views, an interesting read.

Well we live in a time when experts are chronically undervalued, even vilified. So it's no surprise Ridley Scott wouldn't take advice and just did whatever he wanted.

I'm no pedantic stickler for detail, I definitely think a good story can take precedence over precise facts, within reasonable limits. But there needs to be some basis in truth, otherwise why bother doing a biopic in the first place?

Best way to illustrate this is with the garbage scene where Napoleon shoots a cannon at the tip of one of the Great Pyramids. This is complete nonsense. It never happened. In fact it's probably impossible given the height of the pyramids and the maximum firing elevation of a Napoleonic 24-pounder cannon being around 7 degrees. But physics aside, it just didn't happen. Plus, The Battle Of The Pyramids was fought some 12 miles away from the pyramids themselves.

Why does this matter? Not just because it didn't happen but because it tells a false narrative. Napoleon was actually fascinated with ancient Egyptology, ancient Rome and archaeology in general. He had an academic reverence for the subject. He took a large scientific team with him to Egypt, mathematicians, engineers, artists, naturalists and more. So why would he go blasting cannons at antiquities?

For all his many character flaws which are fair to point out, Napoleon was not the imbecilic philistine that Ridley Scott portrayed him as. If the intention was to only show Napoleon in a bad light, well there's plenty of true things to portray, there's absolutely no need to make **** up. It's such poor film-making it's hard not to fume.
 
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