There's a few other worthy contenders, there was a BBC docu-drama type thing that covered his rise during the siege of toulon, it was really well done. And then there is the "Waterloo" (1970) film, which is fantastic, with absolutely huge and epic battles scenes. But yeah, Epic history TV's napoleon series is great.
The Age of Napolean podcast is probably as exhaustive an exploration of Napoleon as you can get without becoming an academic historian. Every little detail of the politics and battles is covered, it's excellent.
I have viewed it over and over :) If they could stitch every episode together and add the Best Marshals videos as well - I would go to to Cinema to watch it. I shall not be watching this Napoleon movie. Master and Commander as well as Duelists are fantastic and it’s a real shame he dropped the ball with Napoleon 😢
its really weird how people lack of trust in experts has turned into this weird thing where they pretend like they know almost as well as people who've whole expertise is a certain thing, like historical stuff, not to mention Napoleon wasn't that long ago to act like history on the matter is speculative or something
@@Ar1AnX1x weird? To put it nicely, people hate it when they lack knowledge in certain fields. We just went through a pretty rough pandemic and we had those types. the difference with Ridley Scott is that he's got an actual history with making movies and _still_ fucked up. The ego from that probably doesn't help.
Ridley Scott has lost it. I literally cannot believe he's making gladiator two. I have to assume he's turned the corner into "make money at all costs" cynic.
He’s like an mma fighter who refuses to accept he’s on the wrong side of his career. With every release, like every knockout, he tarnishes his legacy. At this point, much like Tony Ferguson, I want there to be an intervention.
You know one of the worst things about Gladiator 2? In it's current description it explains that it is going to star Maximus' grown up son. That destroys the whole point of the first movie where Maximus wants revenge for his dead family.
@@iverkjellkken6569 weren't his wife and son both burnt to a crisp and hung outside his villa? I certainly know a horse trampled his son in the middle of nowhere.
Fun fact: Napoleons Nickname of the “Little Corporal” is actually due to his bravery under command and not his height. When he had his first major command in Italy in 1796, his troops loved him for his eagerness and charisma. Napoleon would also “humble himself” as a general by personally aiming the cannons during several battles, most notably during the battles of Lodi and the Arcole. It was a term of endearment that napoleon himself liked.
I found Ridley Scott's excuse about the movie being not historical accurate quite funny. If he really doesn't care about the movie being atleast tried to be as accurate as possible to the real story, then I wouldn't mind Napoleon fighting Optimus Prime or T-Rex at this point 😂
Dude a lot of Creators take liberties with their historical pieces. The creator for Ghost of Tsushima says he wasn't going for historical accuracy. Does that mean the Monguls are supposed to be Zombies with regenerating Limbs?
Ur just pathetic at the end of the day it got the main beats and filmmakers change things cos make a film more entertaining there is a huge difference with changing small things to adding a trex stop quoting ur UA-camrs and have a valid opinion
@@maskedman5657 I’ve never seen anyone except Scott be so contemptuous of the idea that they should be aiming for historical accuracy though. Most people in that position will say it’s not their focus but admit that it’s at least understandable as something to want. Meanwhile Scott is over here baffled that people want to see an accurate Napoleon movie like he’s never met a history enthusiast in his life or something. 😂
The battles were apparently quite realistic and they hired a military expert to arrange correct formations, battle tactics. Some of the criticisms are quite funny, too. It’s a movie, not a documentary. Brave heart is also incredibly inaccurate but it’s just a great movie. Most of the criticisms are from the French reviewers and critics who are annoyed they didn’t paint him in a more positive light, or forget that Napoleon exaggerated a lot of his earlier successes to rise through the ranks. But French audiences loved it, I’m just going from articles so that could be wrong.
There are two fundamental problems with this movie. The first is that it's not the movie we - or History Buffs to be specific- wanted it to be. We wanted to see the young, ambitious, cunning, intelligent, brilliant Corsican officer rise to become Emperor using his wits and talents. We wanted to see his genius in planning battles and why his men followed him to the bitter end. We wanted to see the political climber who used lies and manipulation to claw his way to the top and stay there. We even wanted to see the Liberal reformer who made many compromises in realising his agenda for France. However, Scott wasn't interested in any of that. He wanted to tell a much more personal tale of Napoleon and Josephine, showing the world through their eyes and romance. An interesting angle but ok. That then brings us into the second problem with the movie as it fails spectacularly at that too. Who is Napoleon? Who is Josephine? Why do they love each other? Why does she cheat on him and why can't he let her go? Why are they so obsessed with each other and what draws them to each other? I sure as hell can't tell you based on the text of the film. We're never given any of the details to help us understand who they are, why they're drawn together and why it's tragic when circumstances force them apart. We just don't understand or care about them as we're never given the time to as so much attention is spent on battles and the political moves of Napoleon which, again, also aren't very well developed so rather than being a deep dive into Napoleon is instead a jumbled, confused, unfocused mess. And what's so frustrating is that all of the pieces are there! Phoenix and Kirby could have been great, the set pieces are spectacular, the movie in general looks gorgeous and with more time or a better script, could have been great. Really, I think Josephine should have been the main character. Call it "The Emperor's Wife" or something and frame it through her eyes, so no battles or politics, just show how she viewed him on her own. That's the only way it could have worked. Cos trying to do ALL this, and for a theatrical cut? It was as doomed for failure as invading Russia.
Ridley scott has had a really bad streak when it comes to how he frames his historical epics. they've never been historically accurate, but at least they were poignant and had a very clear point. The duellists did a great job of showing the pettiness and subtle brutality of the very concept of honor duels. Gladiator was very good at portraying how Rome fell from grace from within due to the extravagances of a madman emperor, and how the system ultimately gave birth to its own demise. Kingdom of Heaven showed the violence and partial fruitlessness of the crusades, how despite the strength of knights and brilliant field commanders a combination of greed and underestimating their opponents would ultimately cause the undoing of the whole effort. but then you start having movies like the Conquest of paradise which is little more than gross revisionism meant to glorify one of history's biggest assholes. Last Duel was a bit better, with an interesting idea with the whole rashomon effect concept, but ultimately fell short due to stilted acting and the need to make a rather flaccid statement. not too surprised that napoleone wasnt recieved all too positively considering ridley scott's modus operandai.
Very well said. Part of the problem with the theatrical cut is that it feels like Scott is balancing two aspects of Napoleon's life, instead of focusing on one more than the other. The film is listed as War/Action, but most of it was his relationship with Josephine. So which is it? I feel like the 4 hr cut would clear a lot of the pacing up, but Napoleon's character might still be flawed and historically inaccurate. I don't want to make excuses or whatnot, but this film's narrative was just a let down, even though everything around it was great.
Yeah you hit the nail on the head for me. I didn't feel the love those to had for each other and a lot of it felt like you were interrupting people in the middle of sex or a fight or a bad conversation that ends in hurt.
Very well put. Thank you for expressing this in such a detailed format. I agree with everything you said. I tried so hard to watch this movie all the way to the end but left at Napoleon's cavalry charge at Waterloo. The movie was such a wasted opportunity.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 Even Blackhawk Down though a great film does get a lot wrong. After reading the book I can now point out all the flaws the film has though it is still a great film. Honestly compared to the 3 you mentioned its the least offensive in terms of bad history. But all films you mentioned are bad in there history and some like Kingdom of Heaven sacrifice history for a pseudo historical point and clear biases.
Napoleon was sold to us as a political and military drama, where the infamous general schemes his way to become emperor while destroying his enemies on the battlefield. We got a relationship drama which ignores Napoleon’s failings while highlighting Josefine’s, interspersed with a few poorly re-enacted battles for trailer-bait.
As a history buff that was initially hyped for this movie then later disappointed, just watch Epic History TV's Napoleon series on youtube. Its top tier, dramatic but factually accurate and gripping.
Fun napoleon fact, he actually spoke French as a second language. he grew up speaking Corsican and was never able to get rid of his Corsican accent when speaking French
With everyone else speaking with British accents, I thought the angle they were going for was to replicate that with Phoenix’s American accent making him stand out just like Napoleon’s Corsican accent but… nope 🫠
Alex is on point when he mentions Amadeus. Totally historically inaccurate yet tells a captivating story. When a story is well told, the audience has no time to worry about historical accuracy.
If it was 100% historically accurate, they would have included Napoleon sending messengers back to Josephine after he won a battle and was heading back...with the message 'don't bathe'. I will let you fill in the blanks! ;)
Battle of Waterloo Napoleon's army was made of 75000 soldiers against 150000 and it still was a short run That tells a lot about the genius of this man and the bravery of the mens around him despite all the factors against him (sickness, weather, mistake from few men on his side, treason, battlefield chose by the ennemi, and so on) He was known to won battles against biggest army a lot of times
Ridley Scott today is a parody of Ridley Scott 30+ years ago... there is a line in Gladiator: 'people should know when they are conquered'; people should know when to retire....
Some fun facts: Napoleon actually fought 60 battles and lost 7. He was a notorious womanizer, and a Romantic (by that I mean the Romance Movement, not a swooner, but he could be like that when he needed to be). Josephine stopped cheating on him after he returned from his Egyptian campaign. Napoleon also had a torrid love affair with a Polish noblewoman named Maria Waleska, who arguably is the only woman he loved next to Josephine, and with whom he had a son. Marie Louise, his second wife, was also proven to be an incredibly loyal woman, who pleaded to her father, the Austrian Emperor Francis I, to join in Napoleon’s exile, so much so that the guy hired an officer to seduce her and dissuade her from that foolishness.
The movie had no mention of Napoleon’s relationship with his Marshals with whom some were dear friends like Marshal Lannes and family members like Marshal Murat who married Napoleon’s sister.
I wasnt a fan of how the story was being told in Oppenheimer. IMO they could have cut the fat out and made it an hour shorter. Especially the scenes with Oppenheimer and that communists lady who ended up killing herself. I didn't see the point in that or how she was important to the story of Oppenheimer. I think flowers of the killermoon had better story telling for a 3.5 hour long movie. I think F.T.K.M. will beat out Oppenheimer for film of the year.
Oppenheimer was a long ass waste of time, I learned his actual history back in high school. Watching a dramatization of his life was boring as fuuuuuckkkkkk. 😂
The history buffs channel is going to tear this movie apart, and rightfully so because I thought this movie sucked and had no and agree with Alex wholeheartedly. This could have easily been an awesome show on streaming with multiple seasons that is historically accurate somewhat like The Crown. Of course Ridley couldn't be involved because he can't do anything that's accurate. As for napoleon, I believe you could probably watch the PBS documentary it's like five parts and it's pretty awesome and you get everything and get the gist and awesomeness of Napoleon's life.
I feel like Ridley Scott always does this thing for his historical flicks where he nails small details in terms of accuracy but for the actual story and characters just writes up a historical drama.
I wouldn't say that. Black Hawk Down is his best film, and one of the best war films of all time, and the battle scenes (which is pretty much the entire movie), are perfect. @@NCC1371
My lovely wife kindly bought Napoleon IMAX tickets for a nice post-holiday trip to the movies. We sat there mostly bored, looking over at each other mocking the terrible editing, forgettable nameless side characters, confusing story consisting of disconnected events, and dour Joaquin Phoenix. Not only did Napoleon disappoint us…it stole hours of our lives, some of it pushing through Black Friday mall parking lot traffic, and robbed us of nearly $95 ($75/tickets, $20/concessions). I could have bought the new Columbo 6 season Blu-Ray boxed set for less money. After typing this I almost want to file a police report against Ridley Scott for robbing us of time and money…and that 2023 Columbo Blu-Ray boxed set.
I think Ridley has lost a lot of respect with the way he's treated the history, he certainly lost mine. Most people get their education from film and tv these days,so treating the history as such can a lot of damage to the actual history. Scott will need a miracle to get back in many people's graces.
Honestly he has never been true to history in his films like Black Hawk Down gets close but falls short of the history and events. Honestly films like Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and more are able to get away with bad history because there well acted and well shot.
Watch Waterloo. It's free on UA-cam. 50 years old movie, and still the closet thing to a historically accurate portrayal of Napoleon. Also has some of the greatest battle scenes of any movie portraying that Era. As for Scott's version. I'm French and everyone here hates this movie with a passion. Phoenix gave a good performance but this is NOT Napoleon. The man who pretty much conquered Europe, won over 60 battles, became emperor... coming from nothing. And you portray him abandoning his men in Egypt just because he was upset that Josephine was cheating on him? For real? (He did abandon his campaign in egypt but for tactical reasons. Not for Josephine 😂). Not to mention Napoleon aiming canons directly towards the pyramids 😂. (Never happened. The pyramids were 19km away from the actual battle) Oh yeah, and fucking SNIPERS during the Napoleon wars. SNIPERS. I mean what the actual fuck 😂😂😂. I never expected historical accuracy from Scott. But this movie was just insulting to our history.
We thought The Martian would be the start of Ridley Scott's resurgence after making failures like Robin Hood, Prometheus and Exodus, but instead he ruins his reputation even more by making Alien: Covenant and this.
Gladiator 2 will be the heroic journey of a gay female gladiator beating up men 3 times her weight & size while rejecting all the evil misogynist Emperors advances, while telling him she don't need no man. Can't wait.
The pacing was awful. I'm the only one in my friend group who knows a fair bit about the period and they kept asking 'what's going on? Where is this? Who's that?'. It was completely indecipherable.
Fun Fact: Napoleon was the most successful General in all of known history. The battles were good but that was about it. I do not believe for a second the characterization of Napoleon here. He was a very charismatic leader and because of the way he led his troops, they loved him.
Napoleon was often described as being short in stature. In actual fact, the height of five foot two recorded on his death was in French units, which were equivalent in today's measurement to five foot, six and a half inches or 169 centimetres - an average height.
@carruthers100 You'll be very surprised if you hear many other takes on this. The myth is still very present in the minds of many people, and when you try to explain it with history and factual evidence, you sound to those people like a Napoleon fanatic or a French nationalist. That's a bit too much for me.
@@hardtymz2517 By your logic literally every single person living at that time would be a "short fk", I'd explain to you the concept of relativity but if you don't have the basic common sense to figure it out by your own I believe you're a lost cause.
10:32 Yes, it definitely looks like a british character assassination. They try to portray Napoleon as a brute (anger issues, slapping his wife at his divorce (which didn't happen), ...) who was the cause for countless deaths in Europe, while "forgetting" to mention that all those wars were not declared by Napoleon, but declared against him by the Coalitions (in which the british were a main force)
Napoleon was average height at the time. Not a shorty at all. Most Frenchmen stood between 5'2” and 5'6”. Napoleon was about 5-5 or 5-6, which was slightly taller than average for the times for people generally.
Unfortunately Scott takes a lot of pride in how fast he works. He has this "I stick 12 cameras on everything yo, gets that shit done fast boi, everybody has to keep up with me" attitude in his last few movies. He is just one of those filmmakers that is so far down the profession's path with so many asskissers around him, he has lost sight of what makes a good movie.
Couldn’t convince any friends to go see it with me. So dragged the wife after some begging to see it. She was so angry I’d wasted her time. When the credits rolled the look on her face said it all. And I have to say, I agreed with her. It sucked!
@@winstonsmith8482OJ is more of the middle man, the less critical , and how the average viewer would see things . Not really the comical relief, they all share that equally
Generals would typhically actually do lead their men into battle in those times. That's why the loss of Officers and Generals were so common back then. General Lasalle and Maréchal Jean Lannes were just two of the many, many great Commanders who fell in those days. Napoleons letter to Lannes wife was actually heartbreaking to read and displays once more his great affection for his men who clearly also believed in the cause they were fighting for. An excerpt from the letter; “The Marshal has died this morning, of his wounds received on the field of honour. My pain equals yours. I lost the most distinguished General in my army, and a companion in arms for sixteen years, whom I considered my best friend.”
I'd love to hear what Joe&Crew think about perhaps just casting french actors for this. Nothing against the actors that were chosen, but there are good french actors that could do the job and do the characters justice *and* be very good in the film.
Would have been good to have seen a wide range of French accents as I'm sure a corsican accent different greatly from a parisian. Often shows use English actors like chynobyl did to show a wide variety of accents but without needing actors to put on lame accents. I understand they want a big actor to play napoleon but the rest of the actors should have been as accurate as possible.
As long as Napoleon's naval defeat at Trafalgar is correctly attributed to Blackadder dressing up as the Prince Regent and informing Wellington that it was better for Nelson to engage the French & Spanish navies at Trafalgar than wait for a sneak attack in Alaska then it's historically accurate enough for me :D
Amadeus is one of the greatest movie of all time! You're right Alex! And Amadeus isn't about Accuracy, it's a movie to make you understand how great Mozarts was and it manage this perfectly.
Napoleon was somewhere between 5'2 and 5'6. He was not 5'8 or 5'9. That was minimum height for the guard. And average height in france and in general at that time was around 165cm or 5'5 - 5'6
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that he was 5'7. Literally above average for the lower class at the time, however, as he rose in rank within the army (and especially with his meteoric rise) he was mocked by officers for his height as officers from noble families were an average of 6 foot-6'1. That extends to almost every other nation too. Nobles could afford more resources and often were much taller than the average citizen. Look at WW1 casualty lists. Almost all the officers are tall, even by today's standards despite the average soldier being 5'4-5'5.
@@Ortelias napoleon was a noble too before he became emperor... And no, many nobles were super short. People like archduke Charles was in 15xcm range, nelson was 5'2" or smth like that. Being very tall was considered 175-180cm and those men were sent to grenadiers.
@@ivvan497 Napoleon was not 5'2 (different countries had different sizes for "1 foot"), he was around 169-170cm which was taller than the average Frenchman at the time.
I think it would've been better if they pulled an Amadeus and started the story with Napoleon writing/recounting his memoirs so you have an unreliable narrator situation. Would've given the movie more leeway
Siege of Toulon and Battle of Waterloo were both done well, but outside of that, the movie was basically: >Napoleon gets cucked for 30 minutes >Five minute battle sequence, billions must die >Repeat for two and half hours. You can't summarize Napoleon's life in a single movie. You could maybe summarize a single coalition war in one movie. You could maybe turn him into a trilogy showcasing his time coming up through the ranks, then as an Emperor, and then his downfall. But you can't cram his whole career into a single movie. I think Phoenix and Kirby's performances were fine, but both were definitely miscast. The inaccuracies were extremely bad. I'm open to inaccuracies for the sake of spectacle and broad appeal, but this was beyond bad. When it comes to historical dramas, you can have spectacle or accuracy imo, but you can't have either. The battles as short clips look great, but watching the Battle of Austerlitz be turned into a 5 minute sequence at max while also being extremely inaccurate was criminal. That was probably the most important and most epic battle of the entire Napoleonic Wars, and it was nothing but a footnote in the movie. That one battle is an entire movie on its own. Him firing at the pyramids was very criminal. He loved history and literally took a group of scholars with him to learn and study Egypt and found Rosetta Stone. The only thing that could have made this movie more inaccurate was him fighting Optimus Prime at the pyramids. With the movie focusing pretty much entirely on Josephine, it still gets their history completely wrong. Entire movie can pretty much be summarized in the divorce scene, Ridley Scott is slapping the audience in the face.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really give real insight into who Napoleon was, because instead of using historical records and letters, Ridley Scott just made up whatever he wanted or believed to be true.
Ridley scott has had a really bad streak when it comes to how he frames his historical epics. they've never been historically accurate, but at least they were poignant and had a very clear point. The duellists did a great job of showing the pettiness and subtle brutality of the very concept of honor duels. Gladiator was very good at portraying how Rome fell from grace from within due to the extravagances of a madman emperor, and how the system ultimately gave birth to its own demise. Kingdom of Heaven showed the violence and partial fruitlessness of the crusades, how despite the strength of knights and brilliant field commanders a combination of greed and underestimating their opponents would ultimately cause the undoing of the whole effort. but then you start having movies like the Conquest of paradise which is little more than gross revisionism meant to glorify one of history's biggest assholes. Last Duel was a bit better, with an interesting idea with the whole rashomon effect concept, but ultimately fell short due to stilted acting and the need to make a rather flaccid statement. im not surprised a lot of people werent too fond of Napoleon. one of the legit greatest figures, both in terms of size and his impact on france and wider europe and its history. you'd need a tv series to fully encapsulate the depth and width of his life and achivements, and ridley scott just isnt the man to capture it.
In 2h30, 1h30 is spent on his love-life. Nobody cares about that. They marketed it as the war-life of Napoleon, and everybody expected that. The focus was completely wrong in this film, it could have been easily wayyy better.
Would be funny if next some french director made a bio pic about Winston Churchill but twisted it like ridley, maybe have churchill constantly begging to be pegged while making baby noises.
Heh, this reminds me of the final battle from Scotts' _Robin Hood_ which *literally* features Robin leading an Army against a French Invasion coming ashore near Dover in Boats that suspiciously look like WW2 Landing Craft.
I think I’m gonna give the 4 hour directors cut a chance because they focused more on the relationship between Josephine and Napoleon rather than his career
As a French viewer, this film was really bad. I didn't recognize the city of Toulon, this is were I live, as the Napoleon Fort is one of our most famous monuments... The acting was really off for Napoleon. The film is focusing more on his love with Josephine while shooting war scenes which has a kind of bad grey filter. I will try the 4 hours long version on Apple, but I don't think it will fix all the problems.
Basically, never let an English do a movie about French history... even the battles that are so praised by some are bad to horrible. That's simply not how battles were done in Napoleonic times... How is is possible that Napoleon movies made 50 years ago look VASTLY better??? I get they had thousands of extras but if you can't match that... why even try to make the movie?? Phoenix was a horrible choice for Napoleon...
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I think the version that releases on Apple Plus will be closer to 4 hours in length. I’m not sure if this will improve the movie, or just draw it out.
You guys could sit through those two hours? What sold it for you when he divorced Josephine? What was the carrying factor at that point? I couldn't watch another minute. There was no way that this dude on the the screen could accomplish anything other than getting himself hung from the nearest tree. And where did his brother come from. LIke this dude is always kicking around. Even his mom takes a tour. What in the actual hell.
Pacing yeah seriously!!!! there's 5 seconds between Josephine begging not to be thrown out of his property, with her bags all packed outside in the rain... and then her playing some Freudian mind games about how he's nothing without her and his mother...
The word "incel" is deeply cruel during a time when suicide is skyrocketing. There is a difference between a men's rights activist that genuinely hates women and someone who is "involuntarily celibate." Someone who just can't get laid even though they really want to. Why further add to their loneliness, alienation, sorrows? That word is so edgy and makes guys that are just lonely and sad hate themselves even more. Why do that?
@@strugglesnuggledslime7040 But before that they weren't massive hypocrites who complained about 'slut-shaming' and 'judging people for their sexual history' ...... while also blatantly judging men for their sexual history(or lack there-of).
@@maskedman5657 To be fair,Gladiator Phoenix to current Phoenix is such a huge jump. Its like showing Marlboro Man Mickey Rourke and then The Expandables Rourke. Most people will be hardpressed to make the connection thanks to the physical transformation if they havent seen it first hand over the years.
That’s not true he had the chance to make Napoleon but historical epics were bombing at the time and he used the chance to make his own character in Barry Lyndon. That’s where the Napoleon budget went.
@@bullymaguire9863This haha😂 He could have said that for his Angry Game Reviews - those were effort. The last years they just watch movies and shows and that's it.
Just finished Netflix's series The Fall of the House of Usher. It was SO good. If you're familiar with the stories of Edgar Allan Poe...you will enjoy this series. The series as a whole is brilliant but the standout episodes are "The Tell Tale Heart" and the series finale "The Raven".
Same, this sounds disappointing. You can make a movie about scientist making a bomb exciting. How do you mess up with a great general and huge historical figure? Ridley should retire.
@rubeng370 when I saw it I thought alot of scenes were weird I was not a fan of Napelon or his wife as characters the middle part of the movie just made me upset
I feel like these accurate historical movies romanticize too much the main characters trying to give them almost a heroic look. The same with Oppenheimer not showing the devastation their creation caused, they focused more on ¨what a misunderstood genius he was¨, it´s more like a tribute than a completely accurate story, a sugar-coated version of reality.
This movie was far more cringe than I expected. In between the battle scenes, it's like they were making fun of Napoleon. As someone who knows little of Napoleon, I left this movie unsure of how he was so successful. Was it just dumb luck?
Vanessa Kirby and Joaquim Phoenix tried to carry this movie on their backs, but it was too much. No single performance could save this terrible excuse of a Napoleon movie. There are so many things I could point out to here, but you're all better off just checking reviews from people who know better anyway. Though I'll say one thing: "You think you are so great because you have boats!". Who actually thought that was a good line to put in? Wth
For those interested, there's a very good mini series on Napoleon made in 2002. They even filmed an English version (while filming a french version first). Sadly it seems hard to find.
Was hyped for this movie and at the end of it kinda mixed feelings. Waiting for the directors cut apperently over 4h long. If that extra 2h ends up ti being around Josephine we should make a petition for Scott not making gladiator 2.
I've found battle scenes very intense (although they lack real sense of tactic & strategy) and the relationship between Josephine and Napoleon quite touching (especially when she passed away) My issue with the movie was that they made Napoleon a wiredo and manchild which buffles me, besides that, a lot of scenes were abruptly cut when emotion is getting to its peak (eg: the scene when he didn't see his wife for the last time) just when audiences are getting into it, the scene just fades to white screen like wtf The latter can be fixed by 4 hours run time, but the way Ridley interprets Napoleon has fundamental issues which can not be fixed by the director's cut unfortunately.
Epic History TV's Napoleon series is all you need.
There's a few other worthy contenders, there was a BBC docu-drama type thing that covered his rise during the siege of toulon, it was really well done. And then there is the "Waterloo" (1970) film, which is fantastic, with absolutely huge and epic battles scenes. But yeah, Epic history TV's napoleon series is great.
@@winstonsmith8482 this is taking me down a memory lane trip. i gotta rewatch a lot of the stuff again lol
The Age of Napolean podcast is probably as exhaustive an exploration of Napoleon as you can get without becoming an academic historian. Every little detail of the politics and battles is covered, it's excellent.
I have viewed it over and over :) If they could stitch every episode together and add the Best Marshals videos as well - I would go to to Cinema to watch it.
I shall not be watching this Napoleon movie. Master and Commander as well as Duelists are fantastic and it’s a real shame he dropped the ball with Napoleon 😢
Love that channel. Also watched Best Marshals multiple times.
Everyone: "this is historically inaccurate."
Ridley Scott: "Shut up! You weren't even there."
its really weird how people lack of trust in experts has turned into this weird thing where they pretend like they know almost as well as people who've whole expertise is a certain thing, like historical stuff, not to mention Napoleon wasn't that long ago to act like history on the matter is speculative or something
@@Ar1AnX1x weird? To put it nicely, people hate it when they lack knowledge in certain fields. We just went through a pretty rough pandemic and we had those types.
the difference with Ridley Scott is that he's got an actual history with making movies and _still_ fucked up. The ego from that probably doesn't help.
can't imagine a 85 year old man using the word fuck.
@@Sercotani putting Danny DeVito as Napoleon would be the most lore accurate decision
Ey im walkin ere ! *Danny Devito as Napoleon.@@Ar1AnX1x
Ridley Scott has lost it. I literally cannot believe he's making gladiator two. I have to assume he's turned the corner into "make money at all costs" cynic.
Was just thinking this. So lucky he didn’t direct Top Gun Maverick
The man also said if he had directed Blade Runner 2049, he would have cut 40-50 minutes.
Yeah.
Ridley has lost the plot.
He’s like an mma fighter who refuses to accept he’s on the wrong side of his career. With every release, like every knockout, he tarnishes his legacy. At this point, much like Tony Ferguson, I want there to be an intervention.
You know one of the worst things about Gladiator 2? In it's current description it explains that it is going to star Maximus' grown up son. That destroys the whole point of the first movie where Maximus wants revenge for his dead family.
@@iverkjellkken6569 weren't his wife and son both burnt to a crisp and hung outside his villa? I certainly know a horse trampled his son in the middle of nowhere.
Fun fact: Napoleons Nickname of the “Little Corporal” is actually due to his bravery under command and not his height. When he had his first major command in Italy in 1796, his troops loved him for his eagerness and charisma. Napoleon would also “humble himself” as a general by personally aiming the cannons during several battles, most notably during the battles of Lodi and the Arcole. It was a term of endearment that napoleon himself liked.
There are several battle were soldiers menaced to wont go to the fight because they dont want Napoleon expose himself so much in the front line
He was 168 cm tall. So not that small as the English want us to believe.
I assume it's humbling by their standards because that sounds awesome that he would jump in on the big guns with his men.
@@Kededian Dude that's 5 and a half foot, that's pretty short.
@@rankcolour8780not 200 years ago
I found Ridley Scott's excuse about the movie being not historical accurate quite funny. If he really doesn't care about the movie being atleast tried to be as accurate as possible to the real story, then I wouldn't mind Napoleon fighting Optimus Prime or T-Rex at this point 😂
There’s already an edit where Napoleon fires a cannon and it hits the giant transformer from Transformers 2 on the Pyramid. 😂
Dude a lot of Creators take liberties with their historical pieces. The creator for Ghost of Tsushima says he wasn't going for historical accuracy. Does that mean the Monguls are supposed to be Zombies with regenerating Limbs?
Ur just pathetic at the end of the day it got the main beats and filmmakers change things cos make a film more entertaining there is a huge difference with changing small things to adding a trex stop quoting ur UA-camrs and have a valid opinion
@@maskedman5657 I’ve never seen anyone except Scott be so contemptuous of the idea that they should be aiming for historical accuracy though.
Most people in that position will say it’s not their focus but admit that it’s at least understandable as something to want. Meanwhile Scott is over here baffled that people want to see an accurate Napoleon movie like he’s never met a history enthusiast in his life or something. 😂
The battles were apparently quite realistic and they hired a military expert to arrange correct formations, battle tactics.
Some of the criticisms are quite funny, too. It’s a movie, not a documentary. Brave heart is also incredibly inaccurate but it’s just a great movie. Most of the criticisms are from the French reviewers and critics who are annoyed they didn’t paint him in a more positive light, or forget that Napoleon exaggerated a lot of his earlier successes to rise through the ranks.
But French audiences loved it, I’m just going from articles so that could be wrong.
There are two fundamental problems with this movie.
The first is that it's not the movie we - or History Buffs to be specific- wanted it to be. We wanted to see the young, ambitious, cunning, intelligent, brilliant Corsican officer rise to become Emperor using his wits and talents.
We wanted to see his genius in planning battles and why his men followed him to the bitter end. We wanted to see the political climber who used lies and manipulation to claw his way to the top and stay there. We even wanted to see the Liberal reformer who made many compromises in realising his agenda for France. However, Scott wasn't interested in any of that. He wanted to tell a much more personal tale of Napoleon and Josephine, showing the world through their eyes and romance. An interesting angle but ok.
That then brings us into the second problem with the movie as it fails spectacularly at that too. Who is Napoleon? Who is Josephine? Why do they love each other? Why does she cheat on him and why can't he let her go? Why are they so obsessed with each other and what draws them to each other? I sure as hell can't tell you based on the text of the film. We're never given any of the details to help us understand who they are, why they're drawn together and why it's tragic when circumstances force them apart. We just don't understand or care about them as we're never given the time to as so much attention is spent on battles and the political moves of Napoleon which, again, also aren't very well developed so rather than being a deep dive into Napoleon is instead a jumbled, confused, unfocused mess.
And what's so frustrating is that all of the pieces are there! Phoenix and Kirby could have been great, the set pieces are spectacular, the movie in general looks gorgeous and with more time or a better script, could have been great.
Really, I think Josephine should have been the main character. Call it "The Emperor's Wife" or something and frame it through her eyes, so no battles or politics, just show how she viewed him on her own. That's the only way it could have worked.
Cos trying to do ALL this, and for a theatrical cut? It was as doomed for failure as invading Russia.
Ridley scott has had a really bad streak when it comes to how he frames his historical epics. they've never been historically accurate, but at least they were poignant and had a very clear point.
The duellists did a great job of showing the pettiness and subtle brutality of the very concept of honor duels.
Gladiator was very good at portraying how Rome fell from grace from within due to the extravagances of a madman emperor, and how the system ultimately gave birth to its own demise.
Kingdom of Heaven showed the violence and partial fruitlessness of the crusades, how despite the strength of knights and brilliant field commanders a combination of greed and underestimating their opponents would ultimately cause the undoing of the whole effort.
but then you start having movies like the Conquest of paradise which is little more than gross revisionism meant to glorify one of history's biggest assholes. Last Duel was a bit better, with an interesting idea with the whole rashomon effect concept, but ultimately fell short due to stilted acting and the need to make a rather flaccid statement.
not too surprised that napoleone wasnt recieved all too positively considering ridley scott's modus operandai.
Very well said. Part of the problem with the theatrical cut is that it feels like Scott is balancing two aspects of Napoleon's life, instead of focusing on one more than the other. The film is listed as War/Action, but most of it was his relationship with Josephine. So which is it? I feel like the 4 hr cut would clear a lot of the pacing up, but Napoleon's character might still be flawed and historically inaccurate. I don't want to make excuses or whatnot, but this film's narrative was just a let down, even though everything around it was great.
Yeah you hit the nail on the head for me. I didn't feel the love those to had for each other and a lot of it felt like you were interrupting people in the middle of sex or a fight or a bad conversation that ends in hurt.
Very well put. Thank you for expressing this in such a detailed format. I agree with everything you said. I tried so hard to watch this movie all the way to the end but left at Napoleon's cavalry charge at Waterloo. The movie was such a wasted opportunity.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 Even Blackhawk Down though a great film does get a lot wrong. After reading the book I can now point out all the flaws the film has though it is still a great film. Honestly compared to the 3 you mentioned its the least offensive in terms of bad history. But all films you mentioned are bad in there history and some like Kingdom of Heaven sacrifice history for a pseudo historical point and clear biases.
Napoleon was sold to us as a political and military drama, where the infamous general schemes his way to become emperor while destroying his enemies on the battlefield.
We got a relationship drama which ignores Napoleon’s failings while highlighting Josefine’s, interspersed with a few poorly re-enacted battles for trailer-bait.
As a history buff that was initially hyped for this movie then later disappointed, just watch Epic History TV's Napoleon series on youtube. Its top tier, dramatic but factually accurate and gripping.
💯
Fun napoleon fact, he actually spoke French as a second language. he grew up speaking Corsican and was never able to get rid of his Corsican accent when speaking French
That interesting 🤔
Would have been great to explore that issue and how he was constantly mocked for his accent.
With everyone else speaking with British accents, I thought the angle they were going for was to replicate that with Phoenix’s American accent making him stand out just like Napoleon’s Corsican accent but… nope 🫠
Third language, I think. He grew up speaking Corsican and Italian. His parents were from Genoa Italy.
Whaaat? Waait a minute. I thought he spoke engliiissh?!
Alex is on point when he mentions Amadeus. Totally historically inaccurate yet tells a captivating story. When a story is well told, the audience has no time to worry about historical accuracy.
*cough* Greatest showman *cough*
Gladiator is one of the most inaccurate film I have ever seen. It might as well be Xena Warrior Princess. Yet, it's an excellent film.
@@janecreek681 What we do in life...echoes in eternity.
If it was 100% historically accurate, they would have included Napoleon sending messengers back to Josephine after he won a battle and was heading back...with the message 'don't bathe'. I will let you fill in the blanks! ;)
@@Nostromo2144 That was an awesome line.
Battle of Waterloo
Napoleon's army was made of 75000 soldiers against 150000 and it still was a short run
That tells a lot about the genius of this man and the bravery of the mens around him despite all the factors against him (sickness, weather, mistake from few men on his side, treason, battlefield chose by the ennemi, and so on)
He was known to won battles against biggest army a lot of times
This is nothing but a parody of Napoleon’s life.
This is nothing but a bad fanfic.
As ever Alex is spot on!😅
It's almost like giving an 85 year old who keeps making financial duds 200 million dollars is a bad idea.
soo this crap is not a Three Part'er ?
Ridley Scott today is a parody of Ridley Scott 30+ years ago...
there is a line in Gladiator: 'people should know when they are conquered'; people should know when to retire....
The last duel was one of his best movies, people’s IQ are so low, they didn’t understand it.
Some fun facts: Napoleon actually fought 60 battles and lost 7. He was a notorious womanizer, and a Romantic (by that I mean the Romance Movement, not a swooner, but he could be like that when he needed to be). Josephine stopped cheating on him after he returned from his Egyptian campaign. Napoleon also had a torrid love affair with a Polish noblewoman named Maria Waleska, who arguably is the only woman he loved next to Josephine, and with whom he had a son. Marie Louise, his second wife, was also proven to be an incredibly loyal woman, who pleaded to her father, the Austrian Emperor Francis I, to join in Napoleon’s exile, so much so that the guy hired an officer to seduce her and dissuade her from that foolishness.
You don’t know shot about Naporleone
Nerd.
Essaying
Look bud idk what you're smoking but it must be INCREDIBLY strong. Stop doing drugs homie.
You have your stats wrong. He fought 86 battles and won 75.
The movie had no mention of Napoleon’s relationship with his Marshals with whom some were dear friends like Marshal Lannes and family members like Marshal Murat who married Napoleon’s sister.
Alex spitting facts once again! That movie was garbage. Oppenheimer felt like an hour to me, Napoleon felt like 6 hours.
They both felt long in my opinion
Oppenheimer flew by. Great pacing.
I wasnt a fan of how the story was being told in Oppenheimer. IMO they could have cut the fat out and made it an hour shorter. Especially the scenes with Oppenheimer and that communists lady who ended up killing herself. I didn't see the point in that or how she was important to the story of Oppenheimer. I think flowers of the killermoon had better story telling for a 3.5 hour long movie. I think F.T.K.M. will beat out Oppenheimer for film of the year.
Oppenheimer was a long ass waste of time, I learned his actual history back in high school. Watching a dramatization of his life was boring as fuuuuuckkkkkk. 😂
I loved how Barbie made a cameo in Oppenheimer.
Master and commander is a love letter to historically accurate cinema.
FanTAStic movie.
Except the actual story was the British fighting the Americans. But that would not play well in America so they made the antagonist French.
The history buffs channel is going to tear this movie apart, and rightfully so because I thought this movie sucked and had no and agree with Alex wholeheartedly. This could have easily been an awesome show on streaming with multiple seasons that is historically accurate somewhat like The Crown. Of course Ridley couldn't be involved because he can't do anything that's accurate. As for napoleon, I believe you could probably watch the PBS documentary it's like five parts and it's pretty awesome and you get everything and get the gist and awesomeness of Napoleon's life.
The history buffs channel does like 2 videos a year at this point.
Kingdom of Heaven was great
@@johnv6806facts
I feel like Ridley Scott always does this thing for his historical flicks where he nails small details in terms of accuracy but for the actual story and characters just writes up a historical drama.
He doesn't put any effort into understanding how warfare works. The battle of Waterloo in the movie was a moshpit of nonsense.
I wouldn't say that. Black Hawk Down is his best film, and one of the best war films of all time, and the battle scenes (which is pretty much the entire movie), are perfect. @@NCC1371
My lovely wife kindly bought Napoleon IMAX tickets for a nice post-holiday trip to the movies. We sat there mostly bored, looking over at each other mocking the terrible editing, forgettable nameless side characters, confusing story consisting of disconnected events, and dour Joaquin Phoenix.
Not only did Napoleon disappoint us…it stole hours of our lives, some of it pushing through Black Friday mall parking lot traffic, and robbed us of nearly $95 ($75/tickets, $20/concessions).
I could have bought the new Columbo 6 season Blu-Ray boxed set for less money. After typing this I almost want to file a police report against Ridley Scott for robbing us of time and money…and that 2023 Columbo Blu-Ray boxed set.
I think Ridley has lost a lot of respect with the way he's treated the history, he certainly lost mine. Most people get their education from film and tv these days,so treating the history as such can a lot of damage to the actual history. Scott will need a miracle to get back in many people's graces.
The truth is so interesting, I never understand why they stray
@@vigilantenfdl4424 Yes!
Honestly he has never been true to history in his films like Black Hawk Down gets close but falls short of the history and events. Honestly films like Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and more are able to get away with bad history because there well acted and well shot.
@@vigilantenfdl4424 Cause they feel they need to add some Hollywood like flare no matter how good the history is.
That's my problem with any movie honestly, the need to dramaticise basic things give off the impression of self parody...
I really wished we had Stanley Kubrick’s version of Napoleon
Hopefully the planned TV series that's based on Kubrick's screenplay gets off the ground sooner rather than later....
There would be naked women so there is that.
Is that a thing? I wanna see it now!
@@hunterfreese7287it was originally gonna get made, though it was cancelled cuz the budget was too much
Watch Waterloo. It's free on UA-cam. 50 years old movie, and still the closet thing to a historically accurate portrayal of Napoleon.
Also has some of the greatest battle scenes of any movie portraying that Era.
As for Scott's version. I'm French and everyone here hates this movie with a passion.
Phoenix gave a good performance but this is NOT Napoleon. The man who pretty much conquered Europe, won over 60 battles, became emperor... coming from nothing.
And you portray him abandoning his men in Egypt just because he was upset that Josephine was cheating on him? For real? (He did abandon his campaign in egypt but for tactical reasons. Not for Josephine 😂).
Not to mention Napoleon aiming canons directly towards the pyramids 😂. (Never happened. The pyramids were 19km away from the actual battle)
Oh yeah, and fucking SNIPERS during the Napoleon wars. SNIPERS. I mean what the actual fuck 😂😂😂.
I never expected historical accuracy from Scott. But this movie was just insulting to our history.
It wasn't a bad movie, just badly named, it shouldn't be named "Napoleon" but "Anti-Napoleon"
should've been called, Josephine and the corporel.
The general who loved me
Seeing Joe dressed up like Napoleon fills me with an extreme amount of joy and whimsy
I think he looks like a warlord in that suit 😂
@@HappyDude1he looks gadaffi in that costume😂
Joe seems to love being in a commanding role. General, CO. Possibly his ego
Wait until you see 2005 Lindsay Lohan!
We thought The Martian would be the start of Ridley Scott's resurgence after making failures like Robin Hood, Prometheus and Exodus, but instead he ruins his reputation even more by making Alien: Covenant and this.
I'm so concerned about Gladiator 2 😬
Gladiator 2 will be the heroic journey of a gay female gladiator beating up men 3 times her weight & size while rejecting all the evil misogynist Emperors advances, while telling him she don't need no man. Can't wait.
You should have been since its announcement.
Gladiator is a movie that absolutely doesnt lend itself to a sequel(especially not in current day).
@@winstonsmith8482 exaggeration. What a useful tool.
And a year later we watched it.
The pacing was awful. I'm the only one in my friend group who knows a fair bit about the period and they kept asking 'what's going on? Where is this? Who's that?'. It was completely indecipherable.
Fun Fact: Napoleon was the most successful General in all of known history.
The battles were good but that was about it. I do not believe for a second the characterization of Napoleon here. He was a very charismatic leader and because of the way he led his troops, they loved him.
AJ: "Older actresses don't sell tickets..."
OJ: "TAKE MY MONEY!!" *hauls out money gun and sprays the room*
🤣🤣🤣
Napoleon was often described as being short in stature. In actual fact, the height of five foot two recorded on his death was in French units, which were equivalent in today's measurement to five foot, six and a half inches or 169 centimetres - an average height.
He was also above the French average of the time.
British propaganda, still repeated today...
That still not a man’s height as in current times. At all. They were spittin mad troof when they called him “short fk.”
@carruthers100 You'll be very surprised if you hear many other takes on this. The myth is still very present in the minds of many people, and when you try to explain it with history and factual evidence, you sound to those people like a Napoleon fanatic or a French nationalist. That's a bit too much for me.
@@hardtymz2517 By your logic literally every single person living at that time would be a "short fk", I'd explain to you the concept of relativity but if you don't have the basic common sense to figure it out by your own I believe you're a lost cause.
10:32 Yes, it definitely looks like a british character assassination. They try to portray Napoleon as a brute (anger issues, slapping his wife at his divorce (which didn't happen), ...) who was the cause for countless deaths in Europe, while "forgetting" to mention that all those wars were not declared by Napoleon, but declared against him by the Coalitions (in which the british were a main force)
Love how Joe dressed up like Cap'n Crunch to do this review.
Napoleon was average height at the time. Not a shorty at all. Most Frenchmen stood between 5'2” and 5'6”. Napoleon was about 5-5 or 5-6, which was slightly taller than average for the times for people generally.
Who cares
Unfortunately Scott takes a lot of pride in how fast he works. He has this "I stick 12 cameras on everything yo, gets that shit done fast boi, everybody has to keep up with me" attitude in his last few movies. He is just one of those filmmakers that is so far down the profession's path with so many asskissers around him, he has lost sight of what makes a good movie.
His life should have been shown in atleast 3 films his rise , his peak then his fall
Couldn’t convince any friends to go see it with me. So dragged the wife after some begging to see it. She was so angry I’d wasted her time. When the credits rolled the look on her face said it all. And I have to say, I agreed with her. It sucked!
This would have been a PERFECT role for Daniel Day-Lewis, damn his well earned retirement!
Day-Lewis is like 6’2” or 6’3”. Way too tall for that role.
@@15allnite So was Hugh Jackman for Wolverine. Hardly a problem, ESPECIALLY for a historical ish Ridley Scott film!
@@seanbrazell7095danny devito is the only man who can play 😊comic-accurate wolverine
Danny DeVito would be perfect for the role
@@Ar1AnX1x I'm pretty sure that, had Danny Devito been cast as Napoleon , France would have spontaneously combusted.
Cant wait to see how Alex breaks this down. One of the best reviewers of the bunch
He's the most level headed.
Same Love the whole crew, Joe is the GOAT game reviewer, but Alex is the GOAT film reviewer, (and OJ is great in the skits and great comic relief!) .
@@winstonsmith8482OJ is more of the middle man, the less critical , and how the average viewer would see things . Not really the comical relief, they all share that equally
He’s overly critical and annoying
@@winstonsmith8482OJ is the complete package
Generals would typhically actually do lead their men into battle in those times. That's why the loss of Officers and Generals were so common back then. General Lasalle and Maréchal Jean Lannes were just two of the many, many great Commanders who fell in those days. Napoleons letter to Lannes wife was actually heartbreaking to read and displays once more his great affection for his men who clearly also believed in the cause they were fighting for.
An excerpt from the letter;
“The Marshal has died this morning, of his wounds received on the field of honour. My pain equals yours. I lost the most distinguished General in my army, and a companion in arms for sixteen years, whom I considered my best friend.”
I'd love to hear what Joe&Crew think about perhaps just casting french actors for this. Nothing against the actors that were chosen, but there are good french actors that could do the job and do the characters justice *and* be very good in the film.
Would have been good to have seen a wide range of French accents as I'm sure a corsican accent different greatly from a parisian. Often shows use English actors like chynobyl did to show a wide variety of accents but without needing actors to put on lame accents. I understand they want a big actor to play napoleon but the rest of the actors should have been as accurate as possible.
He's always got a costume, but this one really nails it. LOL Awesome.
As long as Napoleon's naval defeat at Trafalgar is correctly attributed to Blackadder dressing up as the Prince Regent and informing Wellington that it was better for Nelson to engage the French & Spanish navies at Trafalgar than wait for a sneak attack in Alaska then it's historically accurate enough for me :D
Amadeus is one of the greatest movie of all time! You're right Alex! And Amadeus isn't about Accuracy, it's a movie to make you understand how great Mozarts was and it manage this perfectly.
That's my number 1.
That movie was about a slave ship??
@@hardtymz2517 What, no Amadeus is a movie about Mozart, the composer
Napoleon was not short, he was average height for his time and local, 5'8" or 5'9". The Napoleon complex has Zero to do with physical height.
All because some British political cartoon artists drew him as short and pudgy because they hated him
Napoleon was somewhere between 5'2 and 5'6. He was not 5'8 or 5'9. That was minimum height for the guard. And average height in france and in general at that time was around 165cm or 5'5 - 5'6
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that he was 5'7. Literally above average for the lower class at the time, however, as he rose in rank within the army (and especially with his meteoric rise) he was mocked by officers for his height as officers from noble families were an average of 6 foot-6'1. That extends to almost every other nation too. Nobles could afford more resources and often were much taller than the average citizen. Look at WW1 casualty lists. Almost all the officers are tall, even by today's standards despite the average soldier being 5'4-5'5.
@@Ortelias napoleon was a noble too before he became emperor...
And no, many nobles were super short. People like archduke Charles was in 15xcm range, nelson was 5'2" or smth like that. Being very tall was considered 175-180cm and those men were sent to grenadiers.
@@ivvan497 Napoleon was not 5'2 (different countries had different sizes for "1 foot"), he was around 169-170cm which was taller than the average Frenchman at the time.
I think it would've been better if they pulled an Amadeus and started the story with Napoleon writing/recounting his memoirs so you have an unreliable narrator situation. Would've given the movie more leeway
Scott: Fuck history! Fuck critics!
Also Scott: This isnt even my preferred version of the film....
Then don’t make a movie that you somehow have no control over. Lame.
Siege of Toulon and Battle of Waterloo were both done well, but outside of that, the movie was basically:
>Napoleon gets cucked for 30 minutes
>Five minute battle sequence, billions must die
>Repeat for two and half hours.
You can't summarize Napoleon's life in a single movie. You could maybe summarize a single coalition war in one movie. You could maybe turn him into a trilogy showcasing his time coming up through the ranks, then as an Emperor, and then his downfall. But you can't cram his whole career into a single movie.
I think Phoenix and Kirby's performances were fine, but both were definitely miscast. The inaccuracies were extremely bad. I'm open to inaccuracies for the sake of spectacle and broad appeal, but this was beyond bad. When it comes to historical dramas, you can have spectacle or accuracy imo, but you can't have either. The battles as short clips look great, but watching the Battle of Austerlitz be turned into a 5 minute sequence at max while also being extremely inaccurate was criminal. That was probably the most important and most epic battle of the entire Napoleonic Wars, and it was nothing but a footnote in the movie. That one battle is an entire movie on its own. Him firing at the pyramids was very criminal. He loved history and literally took a group of scholars with him to learn and study Egypt and found Rosetta Stone. The only thing that could have made this movie more inaccurate was him fighting Optimus Prime at the pyramids.
With the movie focusing pretty much entirely on Josephine, it still gets their history completely wrong. Entire movie can pretty much be summarized in the divorce scene, Ridley Scott is slapping the audience in the face.
Literally the next day I watched Waterloo as medicine.
This would've been better as a series of films.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really give real insight into who Napoleon was, because instead of using historical records and letters, Ridley Scott just made up whatever he wanted or believed to be true.
My disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined
Scott hates Napoleon, that's it. He would never been able to make a good movie out of him. It's that simple.
This movie felt like a speedrun of his life, and even so, told in a mediocre way.
"Amadeus" was such an epic movie.
Ridley scott has had a really bad streak when it comes to how he frames his historical epics. they've never been historically accurate, but at least they were poignant and had a very clear point.
The duellists did a great job of showing the pettiness and subtle brutality of the very concept of honor duels.
Gladiator was very good at portraying how Rome fell from grace from within due to the extravagances of a madman emperor, and how the system ultimately gave birth to its own demise.
Kingdom of Heaven showed the violence and partial fruitlessness of the crusades, how despite the strength of knights and brilliant field commanders a combination of greed and underestimating their opponents would ultimately cause the undoing of the whole effort.
but then you start having movies like the Conquest of paradise which is little more than gross revisionism meant to glorify one of history's biggest assholes. Last Duel was a bit better, with an interesting idea with the whole rashomon effect concept, but ultimately fell short due to stilted acting and the need to make a rather flaccid statement.
im not surprised a lot of people werent too fond of Napoleon. one of the legit greatest figures, both in terms of size and his impact on france and wider europe and its history. you'd need a tv series to fully encapsulate the depth and width of his life and achivements, and ridley scott just isnt the man to capture it.
In 2h30, 1h30 is spent on his love-life. Nobody cares about that. They marketed it as the war-life of Napoleon, and everybody expected that. The focus was completely wrong in this film, it could have been easily wayyy better.
7:31 "I liked it a little less than you guys" - Alex
Completely shocked!! Then he rants for 4mins. Come on bro!
Would be funny if next some french director made a bio pic about Winston Churchill but twisted it like ridley, maybe have churchill constantly begging to be pegged while making baby noises.
No cavalry charge. He did lead troops in combat personally in his early career.
The Duel was underrated imo, I’d recommended that over Napoleon
Alex hit the nail on this one. Agree with everything he said. If they did it historically accurate it would have been way way better.
It felt like a purposeful character assassination. I saw it as a parody made by a stubborn grumpy old Englishman who dislikes the French.
Ok now i want to see the movie hahahaha, that sounds interesting.
Everyone dislikes the French
I love the French 🇺🇲♥️🇫🇷
awesome movie, loved the part where napoleon stormed the beaches of Normandy with his troops, so brave
The scene near the end where a tank is blown up by a plane, man I didn't expect that.
made me spit out my curry bro, what the hell
Heh, this reminds me of the final battle from Scotts' _Robin Hood_ which *literally* features Robin leading an Army against a French Invasion coming ashore near Dover in Boats that suspiciously look like WW2 Landing Craft.
I was literally waiting for this review because the trailer does look really good
I think Eva Green would have been great pick for Josephine plus she’s actually French
you couldn't have described it better... they indeed made Napoleon look like an incel which was totally off-putting and did this man a disservice
Hopefully the guys start their review of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters/Godzilla show this week! Since we are at episode 4 already
The film Waterloo (1970) is a great watch Joe.
Rod Steiger is an excellent Napoleon.
This movie was a real let down man
I think I’m gonna give the 4 hour directors cut a chance because they focused more on the relationship between Josephine and Napoleon rather than his career
Dude, your wong, like very wrong, the movie was good.
As a French viewer, this film was really bad.
I didn't recognize the city of Toulon, this is were I live, as the Napoleon Fort is one of our most famous monuments...
The acting was really off for Napoleon. The film is focusing more on his love with Josephine while shooting war scenes which has a kind of bad grey filter.
I will try the 4 hours long version on Apple, but I don't think it will fix all the problems.
0:10 how those two are not laughing at Joe's funny accent and mannerisms is beyond me. I guess they're not easily amused.
Basically, never let an English do a movie about French history... even the battles that are so praised by some are bad to horrible. That's simply not how battles were done in Napoleonic times... How is is possible that Napoleon movies made 50 years ago look VASTLY better??? I get they had thousands of extras but if you can't match that... why even try to make the movie?? Phoenix was a horrible choice for Napoleon...
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I think the version that releases on Apple Plus will be closer to 4 hours in length. I’m not sure if this will improve the movie, or just draw it out.
Josephine was six years older than Napoleon.
It’s 2023, everyone’s scared of making a man a dominate character in films. Not with the times! 😂
Hopefully Disney or Sony can adapt this and give us the black trasgender Napoleon we deserve
feminism is cancer.
You guys could sit through those two hours? What sold it for you when he divorced Josephine? What was the carrying factor at that point? I couldn't watch another minute. There was no way that this dude on the the screen could accomplish anything other than getting himself hung from the nearest tree. And where did his brother come from. LIke this dude is always kicking around. Even his mom takes a tour. What in the actual hell.
The Napoleon in the Total War trailer looks, sounds and feels unironically way better than in this movie. A 14 year old game btw.
Pacing yeah seriously!!!! there's 5 seconds between Josephine begging not to be thrown out of his property, with her bags all packed outside in the rain... and then her playing some Freudian mind games about how he's nothing without her and his mother...
The word "incel" is deeply cruel during a time when suicide is skyrocketing. There is a difference between a men's rights activist that genuinely hates women and someone who is "involuntarily celibate." Someone who just can't get laid even though they really want to. Why further add to their loneliness, alienation, sorrows? That word is so edgy and makes guys that are just lonely and sad hate themselves even more. Why do that?
That's the blatant hypocrisy of modern "feminism" for you.
Meh,before that they used virgin.
Same rhetoric,different word.
@@strugglesnuggledslime7040 But before that they weren't massive hypocrites who complained about 'slut-shaming' and 'judging people for their sexual history' ...... while also blatantly judging men for their sexual history(or lack there-of).
Same thing
Napoleon was around 5'6" in English units. Average height of a Frenchman in 1800 was about 5'5", so he was actually average height.
I didn't know who Phoenix was before I saw Joker, He completely blew me away, Now I've just been watching all of his stuff
You never Seen Her, Signs, Gladiator, of The Village?
@@maskedman5657
Nope, I did see gladiator but he wasn't a name that immediately popped up in my head
@@maskedman5657 To be fair,Gladiator Phoenix to current Phoenix is such a huge jump.
Its like showing Marlboro Man Mickey Rourke and then The Expandables Rourke.
Most people will be hardpressed to make the connection thanks to the physical transformation if they havent seen it first hand over the years.
"Waterloo" 1970 is stilll the superior Napoleon flick.
"Waterloo" from 1970 is the movie Stanley Kubrick wished he could have made.
That’s not true he had the chance to make Napoleon but historical epics were bombing at the time and he used the chance to make his own character in Barry Lyndon. That’s where the Napoleon budget went.
@@Davidsworldtravelstrue but both Waterloo and Barry Lyndon are incredible movies
Honestly, joe would make a Perfect Francisco Solano Lopez cosplayer.
I admire Joe’s dedication to his channel his videos are great
? they are sitting and talking about a movie, for views and money. what are you talking about?
@@bullymaguire9863and earn more money in a year then you will ever see🤷♂️
…gonna cry?
@@bullymaguire9863This haha😂
He could have said that for his Angry Game Reviews - those were effort.
The last years they just watch movies and shows and that's it.
Me personally considering the reviews and comments online about it being short and jumps around I’m waiting for the 4 hour version
Just finished Netflix's series The Fall of the House of Usher. It was SO good. If you're familiar with the stories of Edgar Allan Poe...you will enjoy this series. The series as a whole is brilliant but the standout episodes are "The Tell Tale Heart" and the series finale "The Raven".
Show was perfect for Halloween. Sounds like Napoleon needed a premium series not an odd movie.
The scale of the battles could have been way bigger. They had CGI, so no excuse!
Damn a 5/10!? And i was hyped to see this 😢
Unfortunately I rated that as well
@@tyleroutland435 is it still worth seeing? The trailers looked cool. Or is it really boring? I don't care that it's inaccurate
Same, this sounds disappointing. You can make a movie about scientist making a bomb exciting. How do you mess up with a great general and huge historical figure? Ridley should retire.
@rubeng370 when I saw it I thought alot of scenes were weird I was not a fan of Napelon or his wife as characters the middle part of the movie just made me upset
Waterloo from like 1989 is a great Napoleonic film
They forgot to mention that he sold one third of what was to become the US
"You think you are special because you have boats" - ah those immortal words (that Napoleon never uttered).
like firing the cannon at the pyramides
I feel like these accurate historical movies romanticize too much the main characters trying to give them almost a heroic look. The same with Oppenheimer not showing the devastation their creation caused, they focused more on ¨what a misunderstood genius he was¨, it´s more like a tribute than a completely accurate story, a sugar-coated version of reality.
This movie was far more cringe than I expected. In between the battle scenes, it's like they were making fun of Napoleon. As someone who knows little of Napoleon, I left this movie unsure of how he was so successful. Was it just dumb luck?
Napoleon was nothing like how this garbage film portrays him. He was a charming, outgoing, charismatic, brilliant leader and strategist.
Napoleon wasn't little, average height for the time, a misnomer created by the British.
Vanessa Kirby and Joaquim Phoenix tried to carry this movie on their backs, but it was too much. No single performance could save this terrible excuse of a Napoleon movie. There are so many things I could point out to here, but you're all better off just checking reviews from people who know better anyway. Though I'll say one thing: "You think you are so great because you have boats!". Who actually thought that was a good line to put in? Wth
It was not bad dude
This film is an epic fail - what a disgrace! They totally disrespected the great man Napoleon - they own the French an apology!
For those interested, there's a very good mini series on Napoleon made in 2002. They even filmed an English version (while filming a french version first). Sadly it seems hard to find.
What its called, bro?
I would have never thought I would say something like this but J. Phoenix was a bad cast for this role he didn’t even try to make an accent
Was hyped for this movie and at the end of it kinda mixed feelings. Waiting for the directors cut apperently over 4h long. If that extra 2h ends up ti being around Josephine we should make a petition for Scott not making gladiator 2.
Great show guys and love your t-shirt Other Joe! Greetings from Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
I've found battle scenes very intense (although they lack real sense of tactic & strategy) and the relationship between Josephine and Napoleon quite touching (especially when she passed away)
My issue with the movie was that they made Napoleon a wiredo and manchild which buffles me, besides that, a lot of scenes were abruptly cut when emotion is getting to its peak (eg: the scene when he didn't see his wife for the last time) just when audiences are getting into it, the scene just fades to white screen like wtf
The latter can be fixed by 4 hours run time, but the way Ridley interprets Napoleon has fundamental issues which can not be fixed by the director's cut unfortunately.
Joe, you got the P in Napoleon slapped on Alex's face in the thumbnail 😂😂