Ridley Scott’s Epic Turns Out To Be A Tedious & Grandiose Comedy

It’s official — 2023 may be the year of the bratty man-child. From Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’ strange masterpiece, to Jacob Elordi as Elvis in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, a slew of high-profile men have played absolute terrors in films this year. Joaquin Phoenix is the latest name to be added to this list as he reunites with Ridley Scott for the director’s latest historical epic, Napoleon. Phoenix’s performance and Scott’s take on the towering (in name only) figure is surprisingly funny, often tedious, and full of bloody battles that don’t skimp on the gore. It’s a bold swing from the director and, despite it being tonally uneven and a bit messy, Napoleon can be still quite fun.

Scott begins Napoleon as the last Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, is guillotined, her head paraded around a stage for all the revelers to see. Napoleon Bonaparte enters soon after, desperate to prove himself a proficient military commander. We see the French push the British out of Toulon (with a brutal chest-bursting moment that can’t help but feel like a weird if accidental callback to Alien) and Napoleon quickly rises through the ranks of the military and meets Vanessa Kirby’s Josephine. Despite chyrons indicating who’s who, though, Scott seems less concerned with orienting viewers in the period (remember, he did tell those concerned about historical accuracy to “get a life”) than he does in setting the tone for the film. Unfortunately, it’s unclear what tone he wants to take as Napoleon vacillates between a sort of domestic comedy and a by-the-numbers biopic that tells the story of France’s whiny emperor.

Kirby undoubtedly steals the show as Josephine both in what she does with the role and what she brings out in Phoenix. Napoleon and Josephine’s sparring leads to some of the funniest moments of the film, with Phoenix playing Napoleon as a certified 19th Century Wife Guy, both pitifully in love and, at first, disgusted by the feelings Josephine brings out in him. This bleeds into Napoleon’s political maneuvering, where Phoenix is often a bumbling power player rather than the great commander history remembers him as. It is early in the film that we begin to see just how Scott will handle the man at the center of it — not with the reverence and care typically reserved for epics of this nature but with a massive eye roll.

The humor certainly breathes some life into a film that often lags in between battles and moments where Josephine and Napoleon share the screen. Although they feel few and far between, Scott’s battle scenes are sweeping and brutal. Austerlitz is a standout, the centerpiece that proves Napoleon’s battle prowess. Still, even the director feels less concerned with the battles than he does with the man himself, though, painting a portrait of an immature man who can’t help but give in to his obsession with power, whether it be exercised via stone-cold battle-time decisions, clumsy political maneuvering, or bumbling social situations.

In a way, Phoenix’s performance is pitch-perfect. It was unclear whether Scott would lean into the Napoleon complex of it all, but the director does just that, showing a disdain for the man that leads to hysteria as often as it does confusion. Inside Napoleon, it seems there are two films: one that plays into straightforward biopic conventions and another, an idiosyncratic comedy about a man whose hubris propels him to great heights where, once he arrives, he’s unsure of what exactly to do. By the time Napoleon returns from exile to once again take over France, the film feels as if it’s crumbling under its ambition, a fitting feeling when Waterloo rolls around.

To say Napoleon is a love story may sound strange, but in many ways, the film is driven by the conqueror’s erratic desire — for victory, for Josephine, for a male heir, and France. That France often loves him back is a wonder in itself, but Scott’s film does not seem to say the same. It does not lionize the figure nor does it crucify him. Napoleon doesn’t even really try to tell the history of France’s most tumultuous period with any sort of coherence. Instead, like the man himself, Napoleon is a confounding film, as exciting as it is plodding and as self-aware of its flaws as Napoleon was blind to his own.

Napoleon releases in theaters on November 22. The film is 158 minutes long and rated R for strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content and brief language.