There are so many things wrong with this revisionist look at Napoleon it’s hard to know where to begin, so let’s start with the miscasting of Joaquin Phoenix. Napoleon’s challenged height has been well-known and publicized (see Napoleon complex). He was estimated at 5-6. Phoenix is a chubby 5-8, so maybe that’s not so bad. But Napoleon was barely 30 years old when he assumed power with the coup d’état du 18 Brumaire in 1799; Phoenix is a well-worn 50.
That’s just a start. Director Ridley Scott falsifies and trivializes the battle at Austerlitz by implying that Napoleon maneuvered the Allies into fighting on a frozen lake and Napoleon’s cannons broke the ice and drowned them.
Worse than that, though, the way Scott shows Napoleon’s return from the island of Elba is mind-numbingly absurd.
That’s just a start on this shallow movie. Scott apparently did no research. As an example, he pictures Marie Antoinette going to the guillotine with long curly hair, but, in fact, her hair was “chopped off” before the journey to the guillotine. Was Scott too lazy to know this or did he deliberately flaunt history? Either way, this small misrepresentation is a minor reminder that you can’t trust anything you see in a Hollywood movie that represents itself as telling an historical story.
But in 2½ hours of supposedly telling of Napoleon, couldn’t he have at least mentioned the Napoleonic Code (still in force)? As for Phoenix, he apparently told Scott shortly before filming commenced that he had no idea how to play the part. That shows, because he doesn’t exhibit a personality that would allow a young man like Napoleon to come close to conquering Europe. Phoenix basically sleepwalks through the role. The only emotion he ever shows is for his wife, Josephine.
On the positive side, Vanessa Kirby steals the show with her performance as Josephine. And the battle at Waterloo, Scott at least made it look realistic, and more in line with what actually happened. Then he had to go and ruin it by having Napoleon make a friendly gesture to the Duke of Wellington, the British victor, as he was abandoning the fray, Hollywood nonsense!
You would think that with a movie this long, Scott could provide something a little more believable and accurate.
By Tony Medley
158 minutes.
R.
Tony Medley is a columnist, and MPAA-accredited film critic His reviews are published in The Larchmont Chronicle, Telicom Magazine, The Tolucan Times, CWEB.com, robinhoodnews.com, on Rottentomatoes.com, the Movie Review Query Engine, and at www.tonymedley.com. Tony Medley holds the rank of Silver life Master, is an American Contract Bridge League Club Director, and has won regional and sectional titles. An attorney, he received his B.S. from UCLA, where he was sports editor of UCLA’s Daily Bruin, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.
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