Ridley Scott's Napoleon (Nov 2023)

[Grim.Reaper]

Saw it with the wife this evening.

I liked it, but would say its good, not great.

The only battle segment worth noting was Waterloo; it came somewhat close to the real thing. 

Austerlitz was almost total fantasy.

But they got the uniforms mostly right. Bicorns at Austerlitz, and shakos at Waterloo.

This is the beauty of me being clueless on Napoleonic battles as I have very little knowledge to compare fiction and fantasy:)

[Gusington]

^Me too.

'Ignorance is bliss.' 

[ArizonaTank]

Saw it with the wife this evening.

I liked it, but would say its good, not great.

The only battle segment worth noting was Waterloo; it came somewhat close to the real thing. 

Austerlitz was almost total fantasy.

But they got the uniforms mostly right. Bicorns at Austerlitz, and shakos at Waterloo.

This is the beauty of me being clueless on Napoleonic battles as I have very little knowledge to compare fiction and fantasy:)

Lucky you. I have painted so many of the little buggers in my time that if RS had made the mistake of using shakos at Austerlitz, it would have been devastating to my psyche.    

[Skoop]

I saw it with my son and I would agree 100% with tank's review.  It's good and entertaining, chalked full of historical inaccuracies and used up too much time in the personal life that should have been used on the campaigns...cause after all, that's what made him great.  But they got the uniforms right and the battles looked epic even though they didn't follow the exact events of history.

The iconic battle scene with the ill fated cavalry charge into the British squares at Waterloo looked really cool and made you feel like you were there for a brief moment, it left us wanting more of that afterwards.  Like, I wish the whole movie was the battle sequences.

[Redwolf]

The iconic battle scene with the ill fated cavalry charge into the British squares at Waterloo looked really cool and made you feel like you were there for a brief moment, it left us wanting more of that afterwards.  Like, I wish the whole movie was the battle sequences.

Out of historical curiosity, how was the cavalry supposed to react to the squares?

Both this movie and the 1970 Waterloo show them just circling while being fired at, which obviously is not a winning strategy.

[W8taminute]

I watched a video by Archcast who claims this is nothing more than "Josephine the Movie".  I think I'm going to pass on this one.

[Tripoli]

The iconic battle scene with the ill fated cavalry charge into the British squares at Waterloo looked really cool and made you feel like you were there for a brief moment, it left us wanting more of that afterwards.  Like, I wish the whole movie was the battle sequences.

Out of historical curiosity, how was the cavalry supposed to react to the squares?

Both this movie and the 1970 Waterloo show them just circling while being fired at, which obviously is not a winning strategy.

I believe the idea was for the cavalry to threaten the British infantry, who then form squares, and in response, the French artillery pummels the squares, causing them to break, whereby the cavalry now runs down the disorganized infantry.  I think the coordination broke down at Waterloo (although I am by no means an expert on this battle).

[ArizonaTank]

The iconic battle scene with the ill fated cavalry charge into the British squares at Waterloo looked really cool and made you feel like you were there for a brief moment, it left us wanting more of that afterwards.  Like, I wish the whole movie was the battle sequences.

Out of historical curiosity, how was the cavalry supposed to react to the squares?

Both this movie and the 1970 Waterloo show them just circling while being fired at, which obviously is not a winning strategy.

In an ideal world, cavalry could press home the charge, and break the square. But this rarely happened. It took a really well-trained horse to charge into a wall of shoulder-to-shoulder bayonets. As far as I know, there were only a few cases of cavalry breaking a square in Napoleonic warfare, and there was always some mitigating circumstance that helped it happen. For example, when Polish Lancers broke a British square in Spain, a rain squall had masked the lancers advance, and the British weren't fully formed when the Poles hit. 

A combined arms attack was the only real answer to the square. A closely packed infantry square was great cannon fodder, and not very mobile. So the ideal sequence was: 1) threaten the infantry into a square with cavalry, 2) pound the squares with artillery and possibly infantry volley fire, 3) mop up the squares when they finally break. This was one of the main reasons that cavalry units usually had horse artillery attached. 

If a combined arms attack was not possible, the other good use of cavalry was to ride through the squares and attack soft rear trains units, or exposed artillery crews. But presumably this sort of attack would be stopped by opposing cavalry.

Ney didn't do any of this at Waterloo. Instead, as depicted in the movies, the cream of the French cavalry units rode around the squares and took galling fire from them. Some historians think that Ney mistook British removal of casualties as a sign of retreat, so he was hoping the charge would catch the British off-balance as they fell-back. Other speculation has been that years of warfare and PTSD had made Ney too impulsive. He seemed to think that the British line would fold merely at the charge - he should have known better.

[Uberhaus]

Most of the battles were in the bedroom.  Wellington was a caricature.  They can show decapitation but the infantry roll around on the ground rather than use their bayonets at times?  My professor would be upset that their was no mention of Napoleon's Civil Code.  Grade Ridley Scott then!

I didn't hate the movie but the only decent battle scenes were Toulon at the beginning and Waterloo at the end.  Maybe the director's cut release will have more of the fighting in Egypt and Russia.

[Destraex]

My initial thoughts on watching this movie is that it was a dreary grey washed film which painted a man who was universally inspiring to a whole country as a monster who committed attocities and genocide by killing his own men en mass. They fail to relate previous wars devestation (seven years wars etc) or that mass conscription and public armies were now back in vogue. The casualty list at the end reminded me of ww2 massacre events which were of course much worse with an entirely different and abnormal intent. I would have liked to see the napoleonic code and all of the civil reforms still in use today from that at least mentioned. Because Napoleon was surrounded by traditionalist monarchies and empires while being in charge or a republic and eventually simply becoming a dictator himself he is seen as both good and bad. He is a confusing character and that's what makes him interesting. I am not necessarily a fan of him but I think he was given a very bad wrap in this film.
 Basically the complicated history of Napoleon was turned into him being painted as a single shade akin to some sort of mafia boss hitler figure whom was controlled and manipulated by Jospehine as his manbaby immature state dictated.

The Battle scenes especially were somehow medieval close combat style blood baths. I laughed at the scoped rifleman, I laughed at the troops coming out of trenches to forms squares in the open thus preparing for cavalry, I laughed at the cannon balls breaking ice and winning the battle, I laughed at a standard bearer being chased by cannon balls. Napoleons battles and life were so chock full of amazing and interesting events and instead the makers of this film choose debauchery and lies. The whole of France who are presumably taught this history at school hate this film btw.

The historical innacuracies are so many and so bad that this film will likely NEVER be cured by a directors cut.
The film is just a depressing I would say biased one dimensional look at a very deep subject.

QQ for you USA peeps out there: The revolution basically happened first in the USA, then in France to overthrow the nobility and get power back in the hands of the people right? So did France do it any differently or did it just copy the US after helping it win the American Revolutionary War? Would you say any of the American Generals stack up as monsters in the way Napoleon is portrayed?

[Skoop]

Well america did it better cause we drafted a constitution that is still in place today.  The French Revolution took control, then they didn't know what to do with it, which led to the reign of terror and the power vacuum for napoleon.

Though america did have to fight a civil war later on.

[ArizonaTank]

QQ for you USA peeps out there: The revolution basically happened first in the USA, then in France to overthrow the nobility and get power back in the hands of the people right? So did France do it any differently or did it just copy the US after helping it win the American Revolutionary War? Would you say any of the American Generals stack up as monsters in the way Napoleon is portrayed?

Well, to start...no American Revolutionary War general crowned themselves as absolute ruler.

America also managed to dodge the worst of the mob rule terror. There are a bunch of reasons for this, but the mob rule sentiments were certainly in the mix.

Anyway, I did not think the movie was that bad, but I certainly see why many would agree with you.

It is sad, because I think this movie will soon be forgotten (except for RS' investors who will not soon forget it).

The good news is that there is at least one 'Napoleon' screen foray that I think is worth watching, the 2002 mini-series with Gerard Depardieu among many others.

But it is hard to find a copy, and I don't think it is currently streaming anywhere.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253839/

[Tripoli]

...

QQ for you USA peeps out there: The revolution basically happened first in the USA, then in France to overthrow the nobility and get power back in the hands of the people right? So did France do it any differently or did it just copy the US after helping it win the American Revolutionary War? Would you say any of the American Generals stack up as monsters in the way Napoleon is portrayed?

This is a pretty deep question.   I would begin by saying that the American Revolution had several characteristics that were absent in the French Revolution.  One of its core principles was  "all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights...."

The French writer Condorcet, while awaiting execution during the Terror, further noted that the French revolution was attempting to remake French society, while the American revolution merely wanted to exchange one group of English rulers for another slightly less English American version.  He wrote:
"It was more complete, more entire than that of America, and of consequence was attended with greater convulsions in the interior of the nation, because the Americans, satisfied with the code of civil and criminal legislation which they had derived from England, having no corrupt system of finance to reform, no feodal tyrannies, no hereditary distinctions, no privileges of rich and powerful corporations, no system of religious intolerance to destroy, had only to direct their attention to the establishment of new powers to be substituted in the place of those hitherto exercised over them by the British government. In these innovations there was nothing that extended to the mass of the people, nothing that altered the subsisting relations formed between individuals: whereas the French revolution, for reasons exactly the reverse, had to embrace the whole economy of society, to change every social relation, to penetrate to the smallest link of the political chain, even to those individuals, who, living in peace upon their property, or by their industry, were equally unconnected with public commotions, whether by their opinions and their occupations, or by the interests of fortune, of ambition, or of glory."

As Joseph Laconte later wrote "Intoxicated by visions of a truly egalitarian society, the revolutionaries in Paris took a wrecking ball to the institutions and traditions that had shaped France for centuries. Virtually nothing, including the religion that guided the lives of most of their fellow citizens, was sacrosanct. "We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic," warned Maximilien Robespierre, "or perish with them." Their list of enemies—past and present—was endless."

Laconte also notes one other critical difference: The American revolution was founded on the idea of natural rights as moored by the Old and New Testaments, while the French revolution, inspired by the thinking of Rousseau and Voltaire, believing in the inate goodness of humans, emphasized human reason and sheer will, untethered from Judeo-Christian thought.  As scores of socialist revolutions have subsequently proven, this substitution of human values for Judeo-Christian ones inevitably leads to death and destruction.

[JasonPratt]

All this just reminds me I haven't seen that crazy-epic silent film of Napoleon's early career which was meant to be the first of a six film series. 

[W8taminute]

Saw the movie over the weekend despite not wanting to see it.  I did promise a friend of mine though that I'd go see Napoleon with him and I kept my word. 

I was entertained but I wouldn't recommend spending money on this film.  Wait until you can see it for free somewhere. 

The movie was mostly about Napoleon doing a whole lot of nothing peppered with a few moments of him doing something.  I thought Joaquin did a better job portraying the Roman emperor in "Gladiator" than his portrayal of Napoleon. 

In one scene Phoenix lets out a slight laugh at a comment one of his advisors make.  That laugh was very similar to the laugh he had in "Joker".  Interesting...