For further discussion: discord.gg/aBKVfXqu

If you make a Napoleon film, you have literally one job. Make Napoleon fans happy. Scott failed this in epic fashion.

Napoleon was the use of art to destroy an icon of western civ. We wasted hours the day after thanksgiving, fighting mall traffic, to see this mess. Godzilla Minus 1 destroyed it in theaters with 10% of the budget.

I never understood this perspective. The English love the victory at Waterloo, yet they act like Napoleon was an idiot. If that was true, then Waterloo would of been like beating up a child. So why then would it be a notable victory?

You`re speaking from my heart. Why the F did Scott fudge up that badly..??? THIS extraordinary subject matter should have been the peak of his career....I am still dumbfounded at how pathetically wrong this movie turned out.

Ridleys Scotts desperate attempt to succeed where Stanley Kubrick failed turns out to be a total and utterly desaster. The truth is, from his 50+ movies, there are maybe 5 or 6 of relevance, but at least 30 which are pretty much total garbage.

Watching this film is like toggling between two nauseatingly adolescent cartoon channels: "Josephine the Dominatrix" and "Napoleon the Barbarian" as the film alternates between scenes of Napoleon groveling before Josephine's snatch and him attending choreographed 'Most-Famous Hits' re-enactments of his battles. From time to time, a few slapstick political routines are thrown in for variety. The theme of 'Napoleon' is male power - sexual, cultural and political - and the subversion of that power. Take the first scene, the guillotining of Marie-Antoinette. Normally, this would introduce the movie's main character, in this case the frustrated young male striver Napoleon. Instead, the dominant impression is of noble, heroic, and female Marie. Napoleon himself - visible skulking on the edge of the crowd - is marginalized in his own film. This juvenile assault on white male supremacy proceeds to shamelessly swap the historical Josephine for a twisted "Barbie," while Napoleon himself - insecure, depressed and melancholic - is turned into her Gen-Z incel-type Ken. As Josephine never tires of telling Napoleon, 'You are nothing without me.' Completing his degradation to pathetic cuck, everything extraordinary or remarkable about him in the historical record has to be turned on its head. This is epitomized in their sex together: nasty, brutish - and short.

34:58 Why buildings in the Moskow in this scene were made of BRICKS not WOOD?

@35:18 - The music in Russia is pretty much recycled from the BBC's War & Peace, from 2016. Admittedly both War & Peace and Napoleon were the same composer, but it made me sit upright in the theatre and roll my eyes, that Scott had basically said - "Do more of that" to Martin Phipps. I didn't know they had done the same with the Pride & Prejudice music that you mentioned!

Do you have news about the "long version" of the movie that was supposed to appear on Apple+ ? Was it cancelled because themovie failed ? I'm actually waiting for this one instead of the theatrical version, just in case the long cut makes it a little better.

Ridley has contempt for History, preferring telling a good story. ..unfortunately, he's forgotten how to tell a good story too.

I felt like all the effort in the movie was in making each scene as cinematically grand as possible, without accuracy to anything else.

In my option they could’ve just done Napoleon at ST Helena with makeup like darkest hour to bring Napoleon to life, flashbacks to his extraordinary life, displaying how such a man could fall, explaining the history with amazing battle scenes, less emphasis on this soap opera bs, and more on the history, it speaks for itself, Waterloo 1970, amazing film, it can get boring when you come to non battle scenes, maybe the acting of the time, but to display the time he lived in, and how much he changed it.

19:44 the scene of Eugen's father's sword is not a fabrication. Besides Hortense and Eugen, Napoleon told this story to Las Cases and Gourgaud in St Helena. Barras also mentions it in his memoirs.

I so disappointed about that film. Napoleon the man energetic, fast acting ,work holic who for my ancestors was so important that to this day he is mentioned in our national anthem and warship as a god (of war ), only to potreited as Commodus and jocker in one person but older . I maybe expect too much but I want to see where someone portrait how multi-national was grand arme . So I go to see Waterloo or just anther film about Napoleonic era .

This just makes me want to rewatch Waterloo

An awful film, full of 'Ridleyscottisms' which occur again and again in his films, whatever the historical period. Soldiers arranged in perfect circles, a weird grey filter used in the battles, and trench warfare. Interesting and novel in Gladiator, but just tired old repetitive stuff now. As well as all the massive historical inaccuracies and casting The Joker to depict Napoleon as a moron.

A truly terrible film, don't think I have ever been more bored in a cinema, and even laughed at parts - laughing in a film about Napoleon is something I did not think I would ever do. Aside from Tsar Alexander, I thought everyone was played badly. Rupert Everett as Wellington was dire, just sneering and giving quiet orders that no one in a battle would hear, unlike Christopher Plummer in Waterloo who practically was Wellington in every way. Such a great missed opportunity; I think it all stems from the arrogance of Ridley Scott, he clearly went into this with his mind made up of what he thought happened (I was baffled by various interviews where he implied this was a pro Napoleon film, as it clearly isn't), and his comments to historians to "Get a life". Damned bad

Napoleon deserves a 10-episode series. Or 7 episode HBO limited series. As for the British view is not exactly right, most current British view is that Napoleon was very very smart. If anything Britain after the War hype the man up. Basically they are like look at this Alexander reborn AND WE THE BRITISH BEAT HIM. This makes Britain look even better the same method the Romans hype Hannibal up so they look good when they beat him at the end. Don't know why Ridley lost the memo on this if he was into British view of Napoleon.

Great assessment. Scott should have ended with the "Waterloo teeth", this is historical. After Waterloo, more than 27K tons of human/animal bones from the Napoleonic battlefields were imported through the port of Hull to be processed into fertilizer. The young soldiers had good teeth and these were used to make dentures ("Waterloo teeth"). At the time, the Brits were called the vampires of Europe.

I really wanted to like this movie, I really did, but I can't. I ended up admitting I'll just have to stick to watching "Waterloo", a film made by the Russians, in 1970. Even "Love & Death" is better, and that's a Woody Allen comedy.

Another great video!

Good review! 👍👍👍👍👵🇦🇺

But you should blame Ridley Scott not just because he's English not just because this is the foolish way Napoleon is being taught in England through the years. Ridley Scott made the movie he consciously made the decisions. He is not as great a filmmaker as people make him out to be Yes he has had some successes but he has had some terrible motion pictures made under him as well this being one of them.

I enjoyed parts of it, but the film was just a brisk summary of Napoleon’s life rather than having an engaging story. The take on the personality of Napoleon was… a take

The worst historical movie I have ever seen.

You had me at bad...

Promise you mate, British ppl aren’t thinking about napoleon in 2024. Ik Americans still have generational trauma that their grandads grandad was ruled by the Crown but you don’t need to project that generational trauma onto us lmao. Ridley Scott just wanted to make something he thought was cool vs something that had historical merit.

That point on Lindybeige was spot on. I have mixed feelings on him overall. Some of the videos are really interesting, but he tends to bash you over the head with that limey smugness to the point it becomes unbearable. I still remember that In Search of Hanibal comic he has been "working on" for like 8 years, 100k in Kickstart money that just seems to have disappeared, the backers of the project seem to think as much