16
votes
Review: Ridley Scott's Napoleon passes the dad movie test with epic battles and obscure quotable facts but Napoleon the character is petty, not heroic
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- Title
- A dad review of Ridley Scott's 'Napoleon'
- Authors
- Drew Magary
- Published
- Nov 21 2023
- Word count
- 915 words
The title makes it sound like the author didn't enjoy that Napoleon was a dork but the article says the opposite,
The real issue seems to be that because Napoleon is such a dweeb, it makes anything nearing drama into comedy.
I got the sense from his list of favorite films that he would have preferred a general with some personal backbone, but I might have misread that. Writing headlines is hard, but actual headlines are frequently clickbait.
Edit @Sodliddesu this is my local paper. I don't think the reviewer is wrong to believe that some of his readers, considering whether to go see a war focused film would appreciate a warning that the military leader is not conventionally heroic or stoic while still being a gifted strategist. There is an expectation rooted in experience that war films here frequently glamorize military life and promote military virtues. Apocalypse Now was an outlier and is now very old.
I am now curious to see how the director and writer portrayed how Napoleon got his troops to follow him enthusiastically.
I was initially interested because I wanted to see how Joaquin Phoenix handled playing Napoleon, but you got me interested. We could certainly use less "conventional" war films, a lot of which are a stone's throw away from jingoism if they aren't already in The Green Berets territory.
I don't think he's wrong either! After all, I was once a lad who's friend suggested Jarhead on a similar misdirection. Not to say anything bad about the reviewer but, in my own cultural bubble, I always felt Napoleon had a sort of a joke under tone. Everyone makes the short jokes, the exile, and on top of the Frenchness - well, I never expected to see him portrayed "Heroically" or anything but it's always good to show that military leaders are often glamorized and their faults glossed over for the sake of some nationalist propaganda angle... But I don't think Napoleon has ever carried that gravitas in a current cultural (Western) landscape.
It's interesting how things change. My first introduction to Napoleon was in reading the 19th century novel Little Women. Jo's friend and Amy's love interest Laurie is asked who his heroes are and one of them is Napoleon.
Honestly, my awareness of french history is very basic. I have an interest in world history so I know more than some Americans, but I don't know many details of Napoleon's career.
Was Napoleon actually sort of a child or was it played up for this movie?
I don't know much about the guy outside of a general understanding of his global historical impact
My understanding is that this movie is playing really fast and loose when it comes to historical accuracy. Ridley Scott just wanted some cool action in a historical setting and you shouldn't go in it expecting an accurate depiction of Napoleon.
Just one example, the movie doesn't get Napoleon's birth year correct.