Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Someone involved in the making of the new Ridley Scott epic named for the emperor should not have taken that so seriously, because someone should have definitely interrupted Scott while making this movie. Apple TV+’s theatrical release of Napoleon somehow moves too fast and yet also too slow. This makes it hard to follow and invest in, and–maybe the biggest sin of all when it comes to such a vital figure in world history–it makes it boring.
Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) takes on the title role, which starts just as Marie Antoinette is being executed by French revolutionaries. Marie’s execution itself has very little to do with Napoleon’s rise, but Scott couldn’t help himself but to show how impress the beheading effects can be. Then, at some future date, Napoleon is an artillery commander with a brilliant plan to seize a port from the British (who are there because they were, but we don’t really know why). This starts him on his trajectory to eventually crowning himself Emperor of France, followed by not one, but two exiles and his eventual death (spoiler alert!). Joining him for much of the journey is Josephine (Vanessa Kirby, who you might recognize from a couple of Mission:Impossible movies), the widow of an executed aristocrat to whom Napoleon takes a fancy. Josephine takes much less of a fancy, but you get her need to hitch her wagon to someone who can help a woman out in such a time of turmoil.
There is some good stuff here. Both Phoenix and Kirby play their respective characters with a bemusement that makes them a little more intriguing than the standard Hollywood treatment. That’s not all good (as I’ll explain below), but it gives them each some screen time that you enjoy. But the really good stuff are the three big battle scenes: the initial Siege of Toulon from the British, the engrossing Battle of Austerlitz (which makes one of the best uses of a frozen lake in a film ever), and the climactic Battle of Waterloo. Scott has a knack for action, and these big scenes give the movie their strongest moments.
And those are pretty much all the strong moments. The weakness that defines the rest of the film rest on two big issues. First, Phoenix and Kirby really don’t have any chemistry at all. In light of historical evidence that Josephine really wasn’t in love with Napoleon, this may have been a creative choice, even if their relationship was later that of friends and confidants. It is that later nature of the relationship that frames the entirety of the film; it is through their conversations and correspondence that the narrative and reactions to that narrative move. Without any chemistry, the narrative itself suffers.
The second big issue–which is surprising for a movie that actually comes out boring–is that there is a breakneck passing of time. Especially in the first hour, every cut to a new scene seems to make 2-3 years pass. Stuff has clearly happened in that time which helps explain where we are now and why we’re there, but Scott doesn’t seem interested in explaining much. Instead, we jump a few years and have a scene of some random government body being dismissed for another random government body, Napoleon making some kind of quip about something, and Josephine looking as bored as we wind up being. For a life where so much happened, very little feels like it’s happening. Except for the cool battle scenes, that is.
At the end, we get some more titles on the screen explaining the scope of Napoleon’s reign and the human cost his wars had on France. A movie that actually told us something about that may have been intriguing. But this is not that movie. This is just, “This thing happened, then this thing happened, and now it’s over.” And that does not make for a compelling film. There is a 4-hour version that is also supposed to drop on Apple TV+ when the movie finally gets there. It might make more sense with the passage of time slowed down, but I cannot see how giving us more of something boring would actually make it less boring. So I’ll pass…unless I really do need that nap.
Napoleon is in theaters now.
(Photo credit: Apple TV+)