When it comes to making what’s touted as being a grand, sweeping epic, a filmmaker had better have his or her ducks in a row before beginning. Unfortunately, in the case of director Ridley Scott’s latest, that’s only half true. This account of power-hungry 18th Century French emperor/dictator Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) does a fine job of getting the picture’s technical aspects down pat, with its excellent production design, costuming, makeup, cinematography and visual effects (especially in the well-orchestrated battle sequences, even if they border on the gratuitous at times). However, the film sorely misses the mark on virtually everything else. The biggest problem here is its poorly composed script, which provides almost no back story about the European politics of the day (both inside and outside of France), leaving viewers who know little about the period puzzled beyond belief. The screenplay is also weak on character development, portraying the autocrat as a monodimensional buffoon, someone whom it’s hard to believe could have accomplished so much (for what it’s worth) by being a loutish dolt. And then there’s Phoenix’s hammy overacting, coming across like a tantrum-prone spoiled little kid than a head of state. It could be that tactic was intentional, perhaps to make a statement about the current political climate and one of its chief players, but falling back on ambition alone as a defining character trait is overly simplistic, even if it’s meant to resonate symbolically. In light of the foregoing, it seems like this project could have used some more in-depth development beyond its production aspects, and perhaps the best way to accomplish that would have been to expand the scope of the story. At a current runtime of 2:41:00, though, the only way to realistically achieve that would have been to grow the story by at least another hour, which means that this venture would likely have worked better as a miniseries than a standalone film. It’s rare for director Scott to drop the ball as much as he has with this offering, but I suppose it’s not too surprising when it comes to tackling something as big as this, an epic that ends up being anything but.

Hearing over and over on the internet about how Napoleon led his army to die in the cold Russian winter, I always assumed he just died there along with them. Turns out, he didn't, and what an unfortunate turn of events that was because it resulted in another hour of movie to watch! I liked the cannon stuff. I would have liked to see more cannons. Getting pretty tired of the whole mumbling Joaquin Phoenix act. If you put this ham on your face, be sure to turn on subtitles!

Based on a screenplay by David Scarpa (that is writing the screenplay for Gladiator 2 too... oh oh) rather than a history book this is as epic as Ridley Scott makes his movies technically.... and that's it. After Ridley's Scott last movie (the magnificent and accurate "The Duel" of 2021) went under the radar on its year my expectation bar was set too high for this one. I can't dismiss all technical work because I just love all Ridley Scott movies because of his singular style, and the movie is truly breathtaking in the major battles parts. But as a whole it simplifies the real personality of the character (that Joaquin Phoenix plays) as a commander and personality of the time (maybe the most famous of that era) and minimizes the intrincancy of his relations with Empress Joséphine (played by Vanessa Kirby). Joaquin plays Napoleon role very well, even with the limitations of being just a caricature here. The gaps and errors in historically accuracy and battle scenes tactics are just fathomless deep, and history is compressed as it where from a history book name and resume of chapter to another, loosing the chance to achieve something grandiose here. I can just dream on a well made screenplay and accurate movie here with the same quality of Ridley's work - nevertheless that it would take more than just one movie to get that chapter of Europe's history. Maybe it will get one or two nominations at Academy for production, costume or cinematography here but that's it. If it was a historical movie of a lesser known character or just focused on one part of his life it the score could be higher but here I just can get a 6.0 out of 10.0 / B - (but with a A for the technical side). It seems thar a version with 92 plus minutes will be released on Apple, but without a final director's cut version date.