Quite a bit all over the place thematically from comedic sides of Napoleon/Kirby to battle scenes. The battles were impressive but the movie is far too long, and drags out. The stakes just felt so low to keep the audience that engaged. Kirby seems a better fit here with Joaquin ok in this but nothing too memorable. Joaquin is decent but it definitely feels like it won't be on his career highlight roll. He tries I think to play too many sides (socially awkard funny to ruthless leader) but kind of goes 50% on both so just feels like a disjointed feel.

I really hope Gladiator 2 is much better than this otherwise going to be such a letdown.

B-

This was really good, however flawed. The battle scenes are progressively more impressive, though they do drag on a bit long. 20 minutes probably could’ve been shaved from the run time easily. The personal drama between Napoleon and Josephine was funny and engaging and Kirby and Phoenix play it beautifully.

Too much of a drag and similar to Oppenheimer I'm not interested to spend 2.5(or more) hours learning about individuals personal life. That angle is good as a side story but doesn't merit such overlong narrations there are better movies for that kind of drama. Like Oppenheimer's sell was atomic bomb i wanted to see battles for Napoleon, yes both movies have some parts of what i expected but again the rest of the bloat is way too much. In both cases the bloat is also repetitive as general life is, here the back and forth of the relationship which, while played well by both actors is mind-numbing. The battle scenes are shot beautifully but they are at the end a side arc and not very interesting. The menace of the character is never brought forth and similar to what Napoleon does the movie is only interested to show character's "good" parts.

4/10. C+/C

My main issue with Ridley Scott's portrayal of Napoleon in his film is that, despite its lengthy duration, it rushes through many significant events in Napoleon's extraordinary life. This rapid pacing detracts from the experience, and I believe the story would be better served as a trilogy, although I recognize the financial impracticality of such an approach. This aspect particularly bothers me as I am currently delving into Napoleon's history. Perhaps if I were a less informed viewer, I might have rated the film higher than a B-. However, overall, I found the film somewhat dull and not as engaging as expected, especially surprising given Ridley Scott's talent for crafting action scenes and epic narratives. The final battle scene was a notable exception. My rating for the film stands at B-.

The good news for you is that there is a four hour version coming to Apple+

Aside from that one ice battle scene and the surprisingly funny sex scenes, it's pretty by the numbers and boring. Ridley Scott is waaay past his prime and desperately needs an editor. Joaquin Phoenix was basically playing an amalgam of the last 5 characters he played.

B-

I don't think I could make it through a 4 hour cut omg

All the war stuff ZzZ. All the stuff with Vanessa Kirby was at least interesting.

Making a Napoleon film where all we ever see are his mistakes was a choice.

The best parts were when Jaquin was just treating it like a comedy. "The fates brought me this porkchop!" made me laugh. The weird noises he'd make when he was horny made me laugh. That was the right tone for the movie. But they wanted it all. Let Jaquin do his weird stuff, let other actors do their serious stuff, spend a bunch of money on battle scenes where it is difficult to tell what is happening ... It's all just a paycheck from apple to these people so what does it matter if its good or not?

I'll give the film a very mediocre 4.5.

I like it overall, the historic element of it is interesting and the battle scenes are well executed, but it's just not the epic historical biopic that seems to have fit a character which had such an impact on in Europe as Napoleon had. So it has some issues, the scope on the character of Napoleon is limited, it appears he cared about 2 things, conquering and Josephine, and it feels it comes up short this way, as well that the Josephine part lingers through the film way too incessantly while it's mostly uninteresting. There are some side characters with too little back story for me to properly understand their importance and purpose, so in the end it just comes up short in the character development area. Also while I totally like Phoenix as an actor, he feels not right for the part, or at least is unconvincing showing little range, as if they had little source material to work with and filled the gaps with random emotions. So, with that perhaps sounding a bit harsh, the film does move fast, it ticks off most of Napoleon's achievements and the many battle scenes are simply quite engrossing. Production values and score are pretty solid that it feels like you're there in Europe at the time of Napoleon.

B

I'm mixed, leaning negative. It was decent as an educational project. I really never knew much about this period and this leader. I even thought that the Battle of Waterloo was fought on the water, lol. So I appreciated it from that perspective. But as entertainment it was not good. Phoenix isn't right for the role and there was way too much of him and Josephine. Scott had Napoleon be a bit of a weirdo, which didn't gel with me. No accented English either. Everyone spoke like the English nobility. I just couldn't invest in the film that much. The battles were good, but they tried to make up for a poor film with the closing one. The film also opened up threads and left them there, and then missed things out that were quite important, which points to Ridley being lazy. That doesn't bode well for Gladiator 2.