Positives
- The battle scenes were well shot and truly captured the gruesomeness of the Napoleonic Wars
- There was a lot of focus on Napoleon’s general egotism, which helped build up to his defeats in Russia and Waterloo
- Josephine was well cast and was a great foil to Napoleon’s behaviors
- Phoenix kept his American accent, but as a stylistic choice, it works as he was Corsican by birth and was known to speak French with a Corsican accent. It helped emphasize how he was an outsider
- The costuming was great and stayed true to the time period
- The uniforms in particular stood out just for how many had to be made and how high quality they looked.
- The prop designers were quite amazing as they had to create so many realistic looking corpses of both horses and humans
- Makeup and special effects were also well done and the wounds ended up looking very lifelike. Thought it was impressive how they showed a woman with a missing foot right after experiencing one of Napoleon’s cannon shots
Negatives
- There was this theater scene during the survivor’s ball, where I thought it was too lewd. I understood it was R rated and that Marie Antoinette was disliked, but it could’ve been toned down some. It also took away from the importance of Napoleon meeting Josephine there
- I wish there was some of his backstory explored more, such as his time as a youth in Corsica, which is what prompted him to join the French military in the first place
- I think they should’ve showed on screen some of Napoleon’s affairs, as it ended up not showing the dynamic he had with Josephine well enough. The time he is depicted having sex within his marriage, it is shown more out of “duty” to prove Josephine can’t get pregnant rather than his actual sexual urges he experienced while at war
- It would’ve been nice to see Napoleon actually on his deathbed rather than end credits discussing when he died and what he said
- I would’ve appreciated some battle scenes being cut shorter to give more time to what Napoleon went through in isolation on both Elba and St. Helena
- To give build up to Napoleon’s encounter with Duke of Wellington, I think a scene or two on the Peninsular Wars would’ve helped show the viewers what Napoleon was up against
I’ll admit, a lot of these are more nitpicks, but if I were to make a movie on Napoleon, my focuses would vary slightly. It was really cool to see the battles on the big screen though, and if you want lots of war scenes, this movie is great for that.
