An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.

There have been numerous attempts over the years to get a movie about the French general and dictator Napoleon Bonaparte off the ground, most notably by Stanley Kubrick, but it is in 2023 that 85-year-old Ridley Scott has succeeded where others may have failed. He has been depicted on screen before but not as much as you’d expect given his huge influence on Europe at the turn of the 19^th century, and certainly not at such scale as in ‘Napoleon’. Spanning years of his life from his early days during the revolution to his death, this is a cradle to grave biopic that attempts to tell the story of Napoleon in a little over 2 hours and 30 minutes – a lofty aim and one that I’m not sure Scott quite succeeds at.

Napoleon is played by the brilliant Joaquin Phoenix, who is committed as always but slightly miscast in my view – a bit too old and feeling tired even when he first comes to power, and not just at the end of his life. A lot of that is down to David Scarpa’s screenplay and Scott’s direction, as much as it is Phoenix’s performance, which chooses to tell Napoleon’s story through his relationship with his wife Josephine, played by Vanessa Kirby. Kirby is one of the best things about the movie but I felt ‘Napoleon’ would have been a better movie with a wider scope and more focus on the military aspects than on his personal life. He’s portrayed as a bit of a cuckolded manchild who is heavily influenced by his wife’s actions, which may be partially true, but Scott never works out how to draw the relevance of this to his undoubted military mastery (or perhaps he never tries).

Some of the military battles we see depicted are superb, Austerlitz especially, and we get an inkling for why this man was perhaps one of the best military tacticians of all time, but it always feels a bit rushed. Maybe it is a little strange to criticise a 150 minute movie for being too short, but ‘Napoleon’ would definitely have benefited from being longer and allowing more time for the motivations and driving factors to become clear – for example, when Napoleon returns from exile to France prior to Waterloo, we don’t get much of an explanation for why so many men were willing to back and join him as there isn’t time before we have to get to Waterloo. We know he was very popular with the French people, but Scott barely shows us this in his rush to show another comedically cringy sex scene between him and his wife.

Perhaps the mooted directors cut will improve things, much like Scott’s earlier epic ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, but it does mean that this version of ‘Napoleon’ feels curiously undercooked – a whistlestop tour of his big moments without the time and pacing to give clarity to his actions and to show the audience what motivated and drove him. Certainly worth seeing on the big screen, but sadly this is not quite the ‘Napoleon’ epic many, including myself, had hoped for.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Ridley Scott

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Ben Miles, Ludivine Sagnier, Matthew Needham, John Hollingwroth, Youssef Kerkour, Sinead Cusack, Phil Cornwell, Ian McNeice, Rupert Everett, Paul Rhys, Catherine Walker and Mark Bonnar

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt13287846/