Ridley Scott – the legendary director of Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator, to name a few – has Directed a film on Napoleon Bonaparte featuring Gladiator actor Joaquin Phoenix: coming off films like Joker and Her– sign me up.
Phoenix plays the titular Bonaparte and his ascension to Emperor following the civil unrest following the French Revolution in 1789. There is pomp and circumstance, amazing costumes, vicious action scenes, and horses getting hit by canon balls, not to mention people marching in the street also getting hit by canon balls, and through all of this, his beloved Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) steals the scenes, and his heart.
If this sounds strange and chaotic, you wouldn’t be wrong. Tonally, the film goes into strange places; there are moments where it seems like a satire with Napoleon, the lord of all he surveys, at war with many parts of Europe, constantly writing love letters to his wife while she is busy cuckolding him and all the papers know about it.
Cut to him rushing home and scolding her, and then Josephine putting him back in his place. Then the next scene is of revolting peasants getting shot to pieces.
The film hits the major points of history: making great military decisions, winning wars, gaining power, and then obtaining complete control. Making enemies, pushing too far into Russia. Everyone knows you don’t invade Russia in the winter. Losing power, getting banished. Returning to Power, losing terribly and being banished again.
It is a lot to cram into a fairly long run time. It was simultaneously too big and not big enough. There wasn’t the quiet, contemplative journey of a man becoming an Emperor, nor was there the scale of total war.
The film cuts back and forth between elements of combat and hushed conversations in fancy rooms to try to show the personal side juxtaposed against the military ordeal. I would argue unsuccessfully.
The most powerful part was at the end, where the film lists the number of people killed in all of the wars he fought, or should I say led. Over 3 million people died for this man’s ambitions. Perhaps the disjointed sensation the film creates is to demonstrate the folly of putting your own ambitions above those you love.
I hope Gladiator 2 will be better.
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe 28 November 2023
