Joaquin Phoenix gives the absolute worst performance of his career as Napoleon Buonaparte, choosing to portray one of history’s most famously charismatic leaders, as a wooden cutout. No movie these days would be complete without Reddit/Marvel-tier quipped dialogue, and this screenplay provides it in spades. Many of the events that would naturally adapt to the big screen are skipped in favor of shots of Phoenix crawling under tables like some fucked up dog. No mention is made of Italy, and Spain and Haiti are skipped over as to avoid portraying the subject in any kind of negative light. Irresponsible and reactionary filmmaking shines through in a script that truly feels like it was written by chatgpt. The film concludes with him suddenly dying in a part that reminded me of the poochy “my planet needs me” bit. Do not waste your time. I was expecting a cheesy Hollywood retelling and it didn’t even do that, despite having more than enough source material to do so.
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I lost all interest in the movie when Ridley Scott trashed historians for suggesting he might try to study history for his historical biopic. He had Napoleon shoot the Sphinx because it “was a quick way to show he conquered Egypt”.
Fucking idiotI lost all interest when Ridley Scott decided to cut the part where Napoleon falsely tries to convert to the true faith of the prophet Mohammed which led to his downfall in waterloo
A movie just on Napoleon in Egypt would have been more interesting. Its a less explored topic than say the battle of Waterloo.
or napoleon in italy. poor, badly equipped soldiers, little plucky nobody napoleon betting big AND ACTUALLY PULLING IT OFF.
and it’s not fucking waterloo. who cares. most covered part of the whole thing, because the english were in it.
“Auteur” theory is fucking bullshit and it’s ruinous.
Well it did give us Reds. So what I’m saying is it’s ok when we do it. Most of the time it just gives us dumb bullshit from long-past-relevant prehistoric filmmakers trying to relive their glory days by making shitty mobster films and casting their prehistoric actor buddies and deaging them so they look like an affront-to-god experimental lab creature that looks 35 but acts 100.
