This movie must have cost a fortune to make. (There is no budget listed yet here on IMDB.) You would think they could have spent a little of it on a good script. So many of the problems here stem from the bad script, which does not provide clues about what it going on.
What we get is several large-scale but very unexciting battle scenes, where we watch the infantry march into suicidal battle, sometimes led by the cavalry, sometimes followed. In a movie about a fabled tactician, there is no discussion of what made him a success, what he did differently, etc.
In between the battle episodes are some of the least romantic, un-erotic love scenes ever filmed. Phoenix and his leading lady have absolutely NO chemistry whatsoever. Half the time he is like a statue with her, the other half like an over-eager dog. We never get a hint of what he might see in her.
I stayed through the whole 2.5 hours because I was with friends. Otherwise I would have left mid-way through, or fallen asleep - as Napoleon does several times himself during the battle scenes.
I saw Oppenheimer, which is a full three hours long, three times last summer, and was riveted to it all three times. That movie was well directed. This movie didn't hold me at all, had no pacing, and was sometimes confusing even though I have studied that period of French history.
Some will find fault with historical inaccuracies. There are evidently a fair number of them. But that doesn't bother me. What bothered me was that Scott and his crew never made this story come alive. Why spend all that money and all those resources on something that just is not interesting?
What we get is several large-scale but very unexciting battle scenes, where we watch the infantry march into suicidal battle, sometimes led by the cavalry, sometimes followed. In a movie about a fabled tactician, there is no discussion of what made him a success, what he did differently, etc.
In between the battle episodes are some of the least romantic, un-erotic love scenes ever filmed. Phoenix and his leading lady have absolutely NO chemistry whatsoever. Half the time he is like a statue with her, the other half like an over-eager dog. We never get a hint of what he might see in her.
I stayed through the whole 2.5 hours because I was with friends. Otherwise I would have left mid-way through, or fallen asleep - as Napoleon does several times himself during the battle scenes.
I saw Oppenheimer, which is a full three hours long, three times last summer, and was riveted to it all three times. That movie was well directed. This movie didn't hold me at all, had no pacing, and was sometimes confusing even though I have studied that period of French history.
Some will find fault with historical inaccuracies. There are evidently a fair number of them. But that doesn't bother me. What bothered me was that Scott and his crew never made this story come alive. Why spend all that money and all those resources on something that just is not interesting?