- Reaction score
- 2,052
- Points
- 1,160
Wife took me to see Ridley Scott's production of Napoleon last night. Despite have a fairly decent slate of actors, directors, producers, effects, ambition and whack of money for battle scenes, I feel like the cut version in theatres was very badly edited.
The story line attempts to explore personalities and relationships, but seems to fail badly. I cannot speak to the historical accuracy of any of the battles and campaigns, but they seem generally accurate if glossed over. It seems that perhaps his life and story are far too big for any one movie.
For example, as I understand it he actually had the Pope basically kidnapped or taken hostage for some reason, but there isn't even a mention of that. His armies fought battles in the Caribbean, but there is no mention of that or even of selling Louisiana or the loss at Trafalgar. Yes, a couple of the big battles are portrayed but really only to set a tone and not to display any particular cunning military genius on his part. (Perhaps there was none, IDK).
This nearly 3 hour movie probably has 10 hours of good quality story and substantive content dropped onto the editing floor. Perhaps it should have been an epic mini series but IMO it is not even close to the quality of production of the 1970 Waterloo Battle (granted that is a movie about a battle and Napoleon fought rough 61 battles although his win/loss ratio is not available.).
However, given that it is supposed to be an "epic" scale movie, I do suggest it be seen in a theatre. He was after all, an Emperor.
Cheers.
The story line attempts to explore personalities and relationships, but seems to fail badly. I cannot speak to the historical accuracy of any of the battles and campaigns, but they seem generally accurate if glossed over. It seems that perhaps his life and story are far too big for any one movie.
For example, as I understand it he actually had the Pope basically kidnapped or taken hostage for some reason, but there isn't even a mention of that. His armies fought battles in the Caribbean, but there is no mention of that or even of selling Louisiana or the loss at Trafalgar. Yes, a couple of the big battles are portrayed but really only to set a tone and not to display any particular cunning military genius on his part. (Perhaps there was none, IDK).
This nearly 3 hour movie probably has 10 hours of good quality story and substantive content dropped onto the editing floor. Perhaps it should have been an epic mini series but IMO it is not even close to the quality of production of the 1970 Waterloo Battle (granted that is a movie about a battle and Napoleon fought rough 61 battles although his win/loss ratio is not available.).
However, given that it is supposed to be an "epic" scale movie, I do suggest it be seen in a theatre. He was after all, an Emperor.
Cheers.
