Napoleon (2023)

Insofar as Napoleon is about a petty and capricious emperor, bent only on military conquest and (apparently) producing a male heir, Ridley Scott’s film about Napoléon Bonaparte has several surprises up its decorated sleeves and boasts quite a few excellent battle sequences. As a film, however, Napoleon is frequently tedious, frustrating, and boring. The trouble is that the film doesn’t like its central character very much at all. In fact, Napoleon’s screenwriter thinks Bonaparte was a classless butcher, intent on destroying most of the citizens of Europe. Frankly I’m inclined to agree, but then the direction and the screenplay are rather at odds. The story of Napoléon Bonaparte has been given lavish, extraordinarily expensive treatment, and all of the character’s petty decisions and erotic peccadilloes have been presented in exquisite detail. All for us to judge him. The film seems especially and pruriently focused on his sexual inadequacies. 

Now, I am not so sure I know how to feel superior to the emperor of France, personally, but the film certainly does: it lets us know that the rulers of Austria, Prussia, and England are much more suited to governance than this grasping, ambitious Corsican, and it reduces Bonaparte, finally, to a series of mocking jokes.