Napoleon just does whatever he wants, gosh! (CREDIT: Aidan Monaghan/Apple)

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Ben Miles, Ludivine Sagnier, Matthew Needham, Youssef Kerkour, Phil Cornwell, Édouard Philipponnat, Ian McNeice, Rupert Everett, Paul Rhys, Catherine Walker, Gavin Spokes, John Hollingworth, Mark Bonnar, Anna Mawn, Davide Tucci, Sam Crane, Scott Handy

Director: Ridley Scott

Running Time: 157 Minutes

Rating: R for Horny Napoleon and Grisly Injured Horses

Release Date: November 22, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: If you paid attention at all during history class, then surely you remember Napoleon Bonaparte, the opportunistic general who rose all the way up to emperor and nearly conquered all of Europe. But ambition and ego got the better of him, as he lived out the end of his life in exile and inspired one of ABBA’s most popular songs. His story has similarly stymied filmmakers over the years, but now director Ridley Scott and screenwriter David Scarpa have finally managed to bring it to the big screen, with Joaquin Phoenix diving shamelessly into the title role. The movie mostly alternates back and forth between his military campaigns and his courtship with his first wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), and there’s certainly plenty to cover on those fronts. (Although I gotta be honest, whenever I read this movie’s title, I can’t help but reflexively hear Aaron Ruell’s immortally nasally delivery of a certain other “Napoleon.”)

What Made an Impression?: Making a Mockery Out of History: I’m no Napoleon scholar, so I can’t say with 100% certainty how accurate any of this movie is. But I can say that his interactions with Josephine sure feel accurate. Mr. Bonaparte strikes me as one of the most impetuous world leaders of the past few hundred years, and that is abundantly clear when he decides that he must find himself a wife. Their relationship is childish, raunchy, and profoundly id-driven. This is all to say: I wish that the entire movie had been a Napoleon/Josephine romantic comedy! They throw insults and food at each other, and then kiss and boink like rabbits in between all the cacophony. You gotta love it when costume dramas dress down.
A Bunch of Explosions, Too: In its efforts to be thorough, the movie also features seemingly every single one of Napoleon’s major battles. They’re all competently staged by Scott and his crew, but during those sequences, I was mostly waiting to return to the intimate humanity of it all. There’s just not much personality to all the mayhem. Although, at least at Waterloo, we get a clear sense of his enemies cattily boxing him in.

In conclusion, I don’t really have much to say about the battle scenes, as they didn’t get much of a reaction out of me. But the Josephine business is enough to make Napoleon worth recommending.

Napoleon is Recommended If You Like: Reading Wikipedia, The naughtiest bits of Amadeus

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Coronations