The battle scenes are the best thing about Ridley Scott's Napoleon. They are truncated though and suddenly cut back to domestic scenes when least expected. I really did not want to see two scenes of soft porn where he has his way with Josephine.
Joaquin Phoenix, doing his worst Marlon Brando, just didn't cut it for me as the great French emperor. Napoleon must have been a hugely charismatic personality to rally the support that he did after the French Revolution, a scene that starts this epic with the demise of Marie Antoinette on the guillotine. Rod Steiger was so much more convincing in Waterloo, the movie with Christopher Plummer as Wellington. Here Wellington is portrayed by the versatile Rupert Everett, which did rather surprise me as I didn't know he had it in him and he's actually quite good, better than Phoenix. I didn't know the actress playing Josephine but she's good too, although I couldn't see any chemistry with Napoleon.
There are some top notch supporting actors like Ben Miles, Ian McNeice and Julien Rhind-Tutt but we blink abd they are gone, rather wasted.
I finished reading War and Peace by Tolstoy recently and it's impossible really to cover this story in two and a half hours in a film so it explains why it fails.
Miscasting of Phoenix as Napoleon is the main problem though. He doesn't have the voice or bearing of one so powerful. He just looks lost half the time, particularly in battle scenes as he looks like he'd be eaten alive in that crush of violent men, some no doubt much larger and stronger. He has one look throughout, and that's dour. Certainly not a man to inspire millions to war.
I liked the battle scenes, effective and bloody but too short for such a huge campaign. There is no timing sense to these huge battles which are rushed over like we are in a hurry to get to the bonking scenes, which seem gratuitous at best.
A wasted opportunity.
Joaquin Phoenix, doing his worst Marlon Brando, just didn't cut it for me as the great French emperor. Napoleon must have been a hugely charismatic personality to rally the support that he did after the French Revolution, a scene that starts this epic with the demise of Marie Antoinette on the guillotine. Rod Steiger was so much more convincing in Waterloo, the movie with Christopher Plummer as Wellington. Here Wellington is portrayed by the versatile Rupert Everett, which did rather surprise me as I didn't know he had it in him and he's actually quite good, better than Phoenix. I didn't know the actress playing Josephine but she's good too, although I couldn't see any chemistry with Napoleon.
There are some top notch supporting actors like Ben Miles, Ian McNeice and Julien Rhind-Tutt but we blink abd they are gone, rather wasted.
I finished reading War and Peace by Tolstoy recently and it's impossible really to cover this story in two and a half hours in a film so it explains why it fails.
Miscasting of Phoenix as Napoleon is the main problem though. He doesn't have the voice or bearing of one so powerful. He just looks lost half the time, particularly in battle scenes as he looks like he'd be eaten alive in that crush of violent men, some no doubt much larger and stronger. He has one look throughout, and that's dour. Certainly not a man to inspire millions to war.
I liked the battle scenes, effective and bloody but too short for such a huge campaign. There is no timing sense to these huge battles which are rushed over like we are in a hurry to get to the bonking scenes, which seem gratuitous at best.
A wasted opportunity.