Napoleon (2023) Review
This week the new Ridley Scott movie, Napoleon makes its way into theaters. This is one that I was very excited to check out due to the subject material, the director, and Joaquin Phoenix as the title character. So how is the movie? Is it good? Should it get some Oscar nominations? Here are my thoughts!
The Good:
Obviously, it’s only November the Oscar nominations don’t drop until January. But I’ll be shocked if this movie doesn’t get several technical nominations. Because on a pure technical level, this film is pretty fantastic. I don’t typically talk about the sound of a movie, but it really stood out to me. Where there’s times where you have cannons going off in these big war scenes that add to the intensity of the scene. Between this and Oppenheimer, they’re tied for best sound design of 2023. It’s not just the sound, the movie looks gorgeous. I’m guessing most of this movie was shot on location and from beginning to end it looks pretty fantastic. Where you have the big war scenes on these big fields, or on snowy areas and it looks great. Also the score for the movie was great. I haven’t heard about this composer before. But the score fits the tone and vibe, it fits the war sequences, the emotional sequence, whatever sequence it needed to fit, it does. We’ll talk about my issues with the movie later on, but the best part about it would be the technical aspects of it.
It’s also a war movie, it’s focused on the wars Napoleon fought in and led. And all of the war sequences are fantastic, part of that is due to the technical aspects of the film. But it also helps that Ridley Scott is a world class director and he brings his skill set to this movie, it’s one of the best directed films of the year if you ask me. Where he does a great job of putting you in the war, you feel like you’re in the war with these characters. Part of that is just how violent and bloody this movie was, that kind of surprised me about this movie. Whenever people are shot or stabbed or whatever, you see the blood. There’s a war that happens about 10-15 into the movie, and Napoleon is riding a horse. Let’s just say, the image that comes with that is pretty horrifying. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably know what I’m talking about. But it’s a movie where you really do feel the danger and intensity of the war. It helps make the movie what it is.
Along those same lines, the movie does a great job of transporting you back to this time period. On a production level mixed with the costumes and the battle sequences it really does make you feel like you’re going back to this time period. Where we see France in the late 1700s and the early 1800s, and it feels like you’re back there. It helps the movie out, it makes the sequences more visceral and potent when you believe the environment and costumes that you’re seeing on the screen.
And of course, Joaquin Phoenix is giving a fantastic performance. He’s a fantastic actor so it’s no surprise that he’s delivering one of the best performances of the year. Where he’s a guy that can play all of the different sides of the character really well. Where at points he can have this dry sense of humor, you can buy as the general, you can buy him as everything Napoleon needs to be. Given the source material and Joaquin Phoenix, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets an Oscar nomination. I don’t know if he will win, but I think he has a strong chance of a nomination. The other person to talk about is Vanessa Kirby as his wife. She’s been in a whole or different things, but it’s more so just fun popcorn films like Mission Impossible and Hobbs and Shaw. This is the most dramatic I’ve seen from her, and in some sense it’s the best acting performance I’ve seen from her. Again, I think she has a good chance and getting a nomination, she brings a lot of emotion and depth to her role.
Finally, this is by no means a comedy, it’s not labeled or marketed as a comedy. But the movie still manages to find nice touches of humor and levity in the film. It’s appropriately placed, it never breaks the tension. It’s not big over the top jokes, but it’s just small details like facial expressions of certain characters or the dry sense of humor that several characters have in the film.
The Bad:
While it’s a very interesting story with lots of layers and depth to it. Napoleon is a very interesting historical character, so there’s a lot this movie gets right. But I feel like the movie would have been better, if the storytelling was different. Where the movie feels like they took significant events from Napoleon’s life, played all of them out but without a clear story throughout it. I know Napoleon is this weird and interesting guy, he doesn’t really get a character arc. But as the audience, we aren’t sure what the story is. What’s he trying to do here, because of this you feel emotionally distant the entire film. Big things will happen in the movie and it’s not really followed up, we aren’t sure why certain things matter. As I was watching it, I was thinking to myself this might have worked better as 8-10 episodes on Apple TV, than a big budget Napoleon tv show with Joaquin Phoenix. Instead of doing a 2 hour and 40 minute film, do a tv show that’s 8 to 10 episodes long. Prior to the film coming out, Ridley Scott did say he does plan to release a 4 hour director's cut of the film when the film drops on Blu-Ray and streaming. I’d be curious if this issue goes away, with adding an extra 80-90 minutes to the film.
The movie is told from Napoleon’s point of view, I believe he’s in every scene of the movie. So he’s narrating through-out the entire film. There’s big time jumps in the film, like years and years. And there will be a voiceover explaining what happened in those years. And I get that Ridley Scott probably didn’t want to make a 3 ½ hour long movie. I get that and I respect that, but I wish we got to see more of what happened rather than hearing what happened. Again, I think if they made this into a tv show it would have worked much better as a whole.
Final Thoughts: I wasn’t sure what to expect with this movie because I heard a lot of mixed things about the film. I wasn’t sure what to expect from it, overall I thought it was very well done and good. It’s a solid movie with great technical aspects and performances. But I felt some of the storytelling was a bit odd. I’m very very curious to see how this movie does at the Oscars.
The Score: 8.4/10 (B)
Comments