The movie “Napoleon” Is

As a reflection of the news-reporting style of delivering the story of Napoleon Bonaparte in the surprisingly-named movie Napoleon, my review discussing the movie will also be as blocky and episodic.

Great cinematography

Felt like a boring history lesson with a ‘love story’ mixed in as a poor attempt to keep us invested

Fantastic large-scale choreography

It is hard to figure out if the movie meant to portray Napoleon as insecure, stupid, and lucky, or clever, political, and unlucky.

Excellent pacing

Joaquin Phoenix is weird and stiff as Bonaparte

What’s the point of trying to draw parallels in battlefield successes with success with Josephine if she didn’t really play a part in it at all? Her presence or absence did little to nothing to serve as a foil for Napoleon’s career

Why does Vanessa Kirby just have a face built for the ‘promiscuous, but in a liberated way’ typecast? I don’t know if I’ve seen her in another role where she does this, but in Napoleon she seems like she’s been doing it forever. She’s such a great actress, my lord.

This movie is like the bastard child of Chris Pine’s The Outlaw King and Timothee Chalamet’s The King

This movie is like a less fun, less meaningful The Last Duel.

YMMV

I wish we got more fun, satisfying strategy. There was only really one demonstration of Napoleon’s strategic cleverness- coincidentally, the cinematography was absolutely stellar in this scene as well. Other than that, he’s just shooting people with cannons before they can shoot back.

I watched Napoleon on an airplane, but you can stream it on AppleTV.

Wondering how my rating system works? Let me explain!