Napoleon - the movie - what I thought

The good lady and myself went to see the Ridley Scott movie Napoleon. I had only seen one review on YouTube (Kermode and Mayo) and seen some headlines about the historical accuracy or otherwise of the film. 

So what did I think? Well I quite enjoyed it, not brilliant, but I wasn’t bored by it. It was interesting to see a portrayal of the man and his relationship with Josephine - perhaps it would have been better if her name was in the title. The acting was good although I’m not sure I really understood the toxic, love/hate relationship the film was focusing on or it wasn’t fully developed. The script didn’t show Napoleon’s drive/ambition and need for Josephine in his life - perhaps the time jumps were too much … for example the scene ending the Retreat from Moscow (1812/3), jumped straight to the abdication in 1814 (not even a sniff of the battle of the Nations). 

The pictures on the screen were great and the battle scenes were grim - really showing some blood and guts. But there were lots of liberties taken. There were lots of flags and camps both at Austerlitz and Waterloo, big flags so you could see who was where. For me the most jarring were those about Waterloo - no reverse slope, La Haye Saint or Hougoumont - the French cavalry charging around the British squares were good, unfortunately the rest was a bit like the awful The Hobbit - Battle of Five Armies for not following the source material or in this case the know historical facts (which is probably worse). 

Probably best to watch the 1970s Waterloo film - I always liked it - got the Airfix battleset for Christmas one year on the back of that.

I suppose I would rate as 3 out of 5 - I would have to say as a positive my better half and Thing 1 both liked it, so for introducing some Napoleonic history (which isn’t Jane Austen based - they used some of the same music from the Kiera Knightly movie as well) is probably a good thing. If I get hold of Apple TV I will probably watch the 4 1/2 hour version, which will hopefully fill the gaps - perhaps it was planned as a miniseries or two films and they decided to put it out as a single movie - which would explain some of the jumps and details in the relationship, which weren’t quite there in the cut at the cinema. 

Morts