People tend to complain when movies that endeavor to explain an important historical event fudge the facts, though anyone who has seriously studied history understands that there are always multiple versions of specific narratives, and the really important thing is to use discernment and native intelligence to reach conclusions that are at least plausible. Some historical movies, of course, don’t even bother and, in fact, make a point of not bothering. Ridley Scott’s big budget interpretation of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte fits easily into this category, since he’s said as much in all the blustery pre-release promotional materials and interviews. According to a number of recent articles, the French have already dismissed the movie as ahistorical nonsense, but that’s OK, too, as long as the movie holds together as a movie and renders what made Napoleon a vital figure understandable, but it doesn’t. Entertaining in spurts—mostly when it lingers on a battlefield—Napoleon shows potential as a sendup of the little corporal’s life but fails to hold together as a story, and history, in order to be at all true to itself, must have a coherent story.

The problems are mainly mechanical. Following a stirring guillotine sequence that conveys the spirit of the Revolution, the movie tries to explicate the Reign of Terror in such a way as to make it clear why a relatively insignificant personality like Napoleon’s could rise in the ranks to become a general so quickly, but the script relies so heavily on psychology that it fails to make sense of the political elements at play, and you’ll beg for a timeout to consult the relevant Wikipedia page on your phone. Consequently, Napoleon’s (Joaquin Phoenix) ascent to the throne comes across as inexplicably inevitable rather than cleverly calculated. By the same token, Napoleon’s relationship with his wife, Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), which competes with the battle scenes for the bulk of screen time, feels stuck from the beginning in a mucky chemistry that makes it difficult to understand what either thought they could get out of the arrangement except abject misery. I assume the passionless rutting and constant deriding of each other’s machinations is supposed to demonstrate the pointlessness of any connubial effort exerted for the sake of maintaining an imperial line, but besides generating a few good jokes at the emperor’s expense the marriage scenes’ only purchase on the story is the way they reinforce Napoleon’s reputation as the most royal of cuckolds. The rightly praised battle scenes may benefit mainly from being juxtaposed with the messiness of everything else in the film, since Scott is obviously fixated on getting them to not only make visual sense, but also logical integrity so as to play up the various vectors of force that led to either victory or defeat. If Scott had limited the whole movie to the Battle of Austerlitz, where the tactics are vividly delineated and the action directed for maximum visceral power, he might have had a masterpiece. 

Similarly, the exciting depiction of the Battle of Waterloo, which ended Napoleon’s career once and for all, might have provided a fitting climax to countervail any confused misgivings the viewer had formed up to that point, but Scott insists on sallying on to the emperor’s exile on St. Helena, where the movie just peters out, much like Napoleon’s sexual energy at any given moment. I will hand it to Phoenix, though. He manages to make his character a consistently petty, disagreeable man right up to the end, and while I believe that was Scott’s intention, I really don’t think it was a wise one. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Napoleon home page in Japanese