Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
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.
Ridley Scott's Napoleon is a visually spectacular but narratively uneven epic. The battle sequences — Austerlitz in particular — are among the most impressively staged and photographed war scenes in recent memory, earning top marks for cinematography. Joaquin Phoenix delivers a committed, eccentric performance, though the script underserves him with a strangely diminished, petulant Napoleon. The plot is the film's chief weakness: it rushes through decades of history in episodic fashion, sacrificing depth and coherence for scope, and the central Josephine relationship feels underdeveloped despite being the film's stated focus. Novelty is limited — it follows familiar biopic conventions and doesn't offer a genuinely fresh perspective on its subject beyond Phoenix's idiosyncratic casting. The ending covering Waterloo and Napoleon's exile is serviceable but abrupt given the film's ambition.