by ECI Released : 2023-11-24
Napoleon is the latest film from legendary director Ridley Scott and stars Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte the famed general and Emperor of France, and Vanessa Kirby as his wife Josephine. Napoleon has a tall task condensing the life and military career of one of history's most famed leaders into a film under three hours. This leads to some scattershot pacing and having some historical knowledge of Napoleon prior to seeing the film definitely makes it easier to understand. However Scott should not have assumed this going in and this will definitely leave his audience members confused with most of the characters being undeveloped and lazily written.
Despite these flaws the film is fantastic with two powerhouse performances from Phoenix and Kirby as well as brilliant direction from Scott specifically within the five major battle scenes throughout the film. Overall I felt this film was still one of the year's best but the director's cut with a rumored 85 minutes of additional footage will definitely merit a second viewing.
