 Well, if it isn't the old French again. Hey guys, this is my review for Napoleon. I was admittedly a little hesitant to watch this movie off the bat because I have had a very clear impression of Napoleon and his history for a long time and that all stems from 1970s Waterloo starring Christopher Plummer and Rod Steiger as Napoleon. The idea of Napoleon's near on entire career summarized in a two and a half hour long movie already like in my mind like that's not possible. To say that the movie doesn't do that is accurate because it talks a lot more about aspects with his wife Josephine than it does about his career. So at least to say the film does take a little bit of a different narrative direction. It also is a different kind of film and how things are portrayed to the point where you almost feel like you're watching a satirical comedy. This movie has a lot more humor than I expected and I don't know if it's ad libbed or if it's actually in the script or if it's Ridley does feel a little weird. While the title is quite simplistic. The movie's feel is all over the place between being a historical drama, an accurate one to being a fictitious one, to being a character study, to being a comedy. It takes all of these different kind of vibes from different types of movies, brings it all together into this kind of weird mishmash. There's parts that I liked, there's parts that I didn't like, there are moments where I laughed, there are moments where I groaned. I had a weird kind of feel through this movie. The first thing I do have to commend is that it's great to see historical dramas again because these movies are becoming rarer and rarer. This one I think with Joaquin's just general aura from the Joker and everything that might have drawn people in. I thought the casting for him was the weirdest thing, it has nothing to do with the fact he's American and that's something else that didn't bother me too much is that everyone in this movie is English, almost. France has already done far better versions, there are many French language first films that France has made that are very good, very good series or movies about Napoleon. I didn't know if he was acting or just being Joaquin or having some adverse side effects from the Joker, he doesn't really portray Napoleon either in a likeable version or a distinct version. And I know that there's been a few comments about people saying that Ridley Scott hates Napoleon and there is that British stereotype that the English hate the French, my father is English so I've heard the jokes. But even my dad would respect Napoleon because Napoleon was one of the greatest generals in history. And this movie does brought this much to try and say yeah that's what happened. It doesn't really portray anyone in a positive light, that's one of the things that Ridley can do well sometimes as he can show the multifaceted sides of characters. But the problem is he's also introducing characters that completely disappear off the face of the fucking earth for no reason, Napoleon's wife had a child, two children in fact from a previous marriage. The boy disappears after his first appearance, whereas the daughter comes back again, I think it's supposed to be 25 years later and she's there for this one scene and that's it, otherwise you wouldn't have known. She had to fucking explain that it was her. From what I have heard there is a lot of this movie on the cutting room floor, like something on like an hour and a half, apparently there will be a 4 hour long cut that will be put on Apple TV. That little part of me kind of is curious about it because it does feel like there's missing, but at the same time just with how the battles were portrayed, I wasn't too ecstatic with them. The one with the Austrians and the Russians, that was okay, funnily enough they portrayed Russia somewhat accurately. The Waterloo battle really kind of pissed me off. Now I know that you can't do that entire battle justice when you're already trying to do it in Napoleon's entire legacy. Justice or just representation is a better word for it. After having watched the Waterloo film many a time, honestly it's one of the greatest films about Napoleonic era that I have ever seen. If you ever get a chance to watch it, watch it because it is. It's honestly one of the best ones, mainly because they did it in the 70s and they had to do it all real. It employs something on like 10,000 Russian or Polish soldiers for this film and you see it in these battles between the fight for the fort, between the giant squares against this French cavalry charge, between the Prussians getting decimated but then coming in right at the end when Wellington's at his fucking edge, his wits end, helping the British win the day. But the movie doesn't do that at all. Wellington basically kicks Napoleon's ass for 20 minutes and then the Prussians come in and Wellington's like, oh thank god, yes. That's not how the battle went at fucking all. I know there's a lot of other things in this movie that didn't happen like when Napoleon fired at the pyramids and there's a few other aspects of the film that just were clearly changed for historical drama and Ridley apparently did that a lot. There's been some interviews with people who were historical advisors on the movie and they even said that Ridley was just like, nah fuck it I want to do it. The man's 85 and he's still producing big huge blockbusters. I mean I can't blame him for being committed to what he's doing but in terms of historical dramas it really usually does a pretty decent job between weaving dramatic, dramaticism and dramatic fiction into historical events. We've seen that with movies like Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, The Duelists. This one just really didn't stick with it. It really veered and it's a very bizarre experiment. Between the strange acting, the very oddly placed but usually really good humor to the historical inaccuracies to the kind of having to mention things because they happened. They talk about Napoleon being this highly regarded general, this well respected amongst the army but you never really see any moments to really warrant it and there's a very big moment where he returns from exile and the French army disobeys orders and joins him but you haven't really seen anything to warrant that. You haven't seen anything to warrant that. And then the movie just kind of ends with like hey yeah look at all these people who died because of him. It's like what the fuck was this movie trying to do? Was this a giant middle finger to Napoleon? Very interesting experiment, very bizarrely put together movie with some good parts, some very bad parts, a very bizarre experiment for me. So in the end I'm going to give Napoleon a 3 out of 7. And if you guys want to watch a really good movie that is accurate and well put together about Napoleon, watch Waterloo and then after you watch Waterloo, watch the history buffs channels video about Waterloo and he will tell you just how accurate that movie is. Phenomenal movie. But at least it wasn't any short man joke so I guess I can give this movie compliments to that. Anyways, thank you guys for watching the video, hope you enjoyed, if you did leave a like and if you're just more subscribed until then, see you guys next time.