Written by Grant Lefelar
In my 22 years of existence on the floating rock popularly known as “Earth,” I’ve been let down on numerous occasions. As part of living, one begrudgingly learns to add “them’s the breaks” to their vocabulary while expecting several things to go wrong against high expectations: an airline losing your luggage, a cold pizza delivery, lack of a hefty IRS refund, and so on. At the movies, one giant disappointment reigns supreme: Gnomeo & Juliet. Yes, in early 2011, the steady stream of Disney Channel commercials advertising the kid-friendly retelling of the Shakespeare play played by CGI garden gnomes entranced nine-year-old me. Disney’s massive promotion campaign must have worked as I went into the theater expecting a computer-animated masterpiece on par with Toy Story. Instead, I watched in horror as I quickly realized the movie was a hunk of junk unsafe for public consumption. Gnomeo & Juliet taught young Grant two very important lessons: a) movies can be bad, a development I have barely gotten over in the past almost 13 years, and b) never go into a movie theater with over-the-top expectations. It pains me to admit a trip to the theater over this Thanksgiving break reinforced those two points.
Director Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is the most bafflingly disappointing work of cinema I’ve seen in a decade. It is not a disaster by any means–it is competently made with great costume and set design, cinematography, special effects, expertly choreographed battle sequences, and good performances here and there. However, Napoleon is befell by bad creative decision after bad creative decision, most evident in its script written by previous Scott collaborator David Scarpa. By focusing on the French Emperor’s personal life, the Napoleon that emerges is one more confused than he is complex.
Portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, who previously worked with Scott over two decades ago on the brilliant Gladiator, the film’s namesake rises from a loyal French republican army officer to become, as Peter Weir’s Master and Commander put it, master of Europe. As Napoleon conquers the mainland continent by successfully engaging the British, Austrians, Germans, and Russians, his domestic life spells great personal trouble for the great leader. His wife Joséphine, played by Vanessa Kirby, entertains lovers while Napoleon’s at war all while failing to produce an heir to the throne. As expressed in the film, Napoleon’s successes on the battlefield directly correlate with his complicated relationship with the Empress. When Napoleon and Joséphine’s marriage is content and their love life passionate, Napoleon ingeniously defeats the Third Coalition at Austerlitz. When Napoleon forces a divorce due to Joséphine’s inability to produce a child, he invades Russia and kills over 200,000 of his men.
Focusing on Napoleon’s personal life is no vice for a filmmaker, especially a talented one like Ridley Scott. There is plenty more to the man than his victories and losses in battle, so exploring the peaks and valleys of his relationship with Joséphine is fair game for a historical piece. Sadly, Phoenix’s performance, Scott’s direction, and Scarpa’s screenplay do not do this element of Napoleon’s character justice. In subdued settings, Phoenix portrays Napoleon as either expressionlessly moping around or desperately trying to connect with his wife with no other moods shown in between. Napoleon’s tone is frequently inconsistent. Scenes occasionally switch back and forth between fleeting seriousness and awkward, out-of-place comic relief. Some scenes work better if you imagine Albert Brooks playing him, which given Phoenix’s speaking voice is surprisingly easy to do.
Sandwiched in between the film’s portrayal of Napoleon as lovesick and insecure is the clumsy depiction of the Emperor as a murderous tyrant sending his Grande Armée to die in the wars of his waging. The historical debate regarding Napoleon’s merits has gone on endlessly for decades, with some seeing him as a great leader while others believe he belongs on Hell’s dictator Mount Rushmore alongside Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini. Scott makes his position clear on his view of Napoleon in the film’s postscript, listing the number of those killed in the Napoleonic Wars and blaming the Emperor for single-handedly starting them. If you want to show Napoleon as a kind of bloodthirsty maniac, then there is plenty of material to work with, but do not make such a statement after showing over two-and-a-half hours of the figure in question dominating in battle and being aroused by his wife.
Speaking of over two-and-a-half hours, Scott fails to put the film’s ample runtime to good use. Napoleon jumps from historical event to historical event in an attempt to retrace the moments that made Napoleon “Napoleon.” However, Napoleon avoids context, leaving the uniformed viewer questioning the reasons behind Napoleon’s actions and motivations of the story’s multitude of historical side characters. Napoleon never gives its supporting figures their due. The film directly explains some roles, such as Directory member Paul Barras, on screen while leaving others, most notably inconsequential Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Talleyrand, for the viewer to discover on their own. As someone with some knowledge of the who’s who of Napoleon’s inner circle, even I was left wondering about the major players. Scott’s inconsistencies here hinder the flow of his telling of Napoleon’s tale.
Despite clear strengths in the film’s look, weaknesses evident in Napoleon’s content render what could have been an original retelling of the French Emperor’s life into a mediocre, lazy drama. See it for its depiction of Toulon, Austerlitz, and Waterloo, but I would not blame anyone for spacing out during the rest of Ridley Scott’s flawed conquest of the Thanksgiving weekend box office.
Rating: one overcooked, dry turkey.