“Napoleon” centered around the life of one of Europe’s most prolific figures of all time Napoleon Bonaparte. This movie shows us how he arose to power, conquered Europe, and had a very disruptive personal life. We see his rise to power and ultimately leading to his downfall. All of that is shown in this movie. This movie reached theaters Nov. 22, full of thrill and drama. I was very excited to see this movie and had very high expectations.
The production of this movie was amazing. The clear shots of beautiful towns and cities shot to portray different cities in Europe that are shown throughout the movie was very appealing. You really get detailed frames when seeing these places. The most impressive shots that are shown throughout the movie are the battle scenes. When most of the time battle scenes are hard to really visualize when looking at it through a cinematography lens, this movie does a great job of making it simple, clean and still being able to understand what’s going on in that scene.
The acting in this movie was really good. Joaquin Phoenix did an amazing job at truly portraying Napoleon, he was definitely the right call for this role considering his talent in portraying difficult characters like his roles in the movie “Joker.” He really embodied Napoleon for being a very quiet, ego-hungry individual who’s not good at small talk, which is what you get out of Phoenix. At first I was a bit bored because there was a lack of dialogue and it felt like other supporting actors were acting more than Napoleon, but Pheonix really was embodying who Napoleon was. That’s what I liked the most because we got the best portrayal of who Napoleon was, and got that insight of how he acted through the lens of an actor.
I had an understanding of who he was and knew most of what he had done. People who don’t know the history of Napoleon may find themselves lost during moments of the movie without knowing the historical context around certain situations. Some scenes don’t last for too long on certain points of Napoleon’s life, so with that I really enjoyed the flow of the movie. However, if you’re going into this movie not knowing much of who Napoleon is, then I would either do some research on who he was or just not see it. This movie doesn’t really do a great job of explaining who Napoleon is and gives you insight of what he does in historical terms, they just go through the flow of it, expecting that you already know who he is. People who watch the movie not knowing of him I assume would feel confused at scenes where they weren’t sure what was going on.
The plot of this movie portrays the figure Napoleon Bonaparte, a famous historical figure who was a general and emperor of France during the late 1700’s to the early 1800’s.. He is most notably known for his immense takeover of Europe during his time as general and emperor, which was known as the Napoleonic War. This movie goes in that direction of what Napoleon had done and his major impacts during his reign as general and emperor, it also goes into his personal life and how he acted, which showed how power hungry and egotistical he was. That’s the overall basis of the movie.
This is a movie I highly recommend. It was very intense and interesting, being able to see through the lens of a very popular figure like Napoleon and get an insight of his life. This is a movie I would specifically recommend to people who are interested in Napoleon. Other than the fact that the movie doesn’t give historical context, it was an amazing movie that I’d recommend to people interested in history and cinematography.
“Napoleon”: ★★★★☆
