This film was awful. Terrible casting. Terrible plot. Terrible handling of the history.
It is worse than Braveheart from an historical point of view. Without the actual wonderful story nor structure.
Awful cinematography with Scott's obsession with blue filters that renders sterile one of the most voluptuous and visually sumptuous eras of art and fashion in history. Completely loses the thread of the feeling of the era or the things that animated so many changes.
As a Brit, Ridley Scott has as much clue about the French Revolution and Napoleon as a North Korean has about democracy and baseball. This version of Napoleon is basically a History Channel treatment of events as conjured by British propaganda and 5th Grade Book Reports.
HE COULDN'T EVEN GET TALLEYRAND'S QUOTE RIGHT! HE GAVE IT TO THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR!
He can't even get the relationships right. How do you have a biopic on Napoleon without Jean Lannes in it? Or, but it has Ney because that is a name every British kid knows.
The sole highlight are the costumes. They look great even under the self-imposed austerity of the teal and orange filters Scott enslaves with every shot.
Just utterly, and holistically awful. Giant, steaming, pile of shit. Embarrassing. It is like making a biopic about Washington wherein they turn George a drag-queen.
