movies

No movie these days would be complete without Reddit/Marvel-tier quipped dialogue, and this screenplay provides it in spades.

I want to imagine Napoleon Bonaparte played as Napoleon Dynamite.

more like napoleon bonerfart

I lost all interest in the movie when Ridley Scott trashed historians for suggesting he might try to study history for his historical biopic. He had Napoleon shoot the Sphinx because it "was a quick way to show he conquered Egypt".
Fucking idiot

Waterloo is a way better movie. All real extras. All from the actual Soviet army.

That sucks. Joaquin Phoenix is a good actor. I've heard lots of bad things about this one

I knew it was gonna be dog-shit when I saw Ridley Scott's name attached to it lol. It does make me want to rewatch Barry Lyndon, which is actually a good movie unlike Napoleon.

edit: I was too harsh on Ridley. I didn't know he directed The Last Duel, which is one of my favorite films of the 2020s so far. Defo not washed up.

I have more complaints about this movie than I feel would be polite to heap on people that I actually like, but for everyone's sake, either avoid this movie in favor of Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo, or if it's too late for you, go watch it to get the taste out of your mouth. It's free on youtube, and it's pretty good quality.

Rod Steiger's performance as Napoleon is regarded as hit or miss, but I personally feel it gets across Napoleon's charisma, mental acuity, and mercurial temper perfectly.

And importantly, unlike Napoleon, which I felt was trying to be three different types of movie at once and ultimately had no real identity, Waterloo is very tightly focused, and also unlike Napoleon, is (for a film anyway) extremely well-researched and historically accurate.

Then of course my favorite part, the sheer number of extras the production pulled together for the big battle. Napoleon's battle scenes were a travesty, resembling not at all the actual history and being so much smaller in scope. Does anybody know if Scott used live extras for the battle scenes? I can't be fucked to check. At any rate, Bondarchuk pulled in something like 15,000 people for the battle scenes, and the way they're shot gives the impression of an honest to god Napoleonic army up on screen.

Most importantly though, Waterloo is actually entertaining, which Napoleon was not. And if you ask me that's the one unforgiveable sin for any movie. How can you fuck up making an actually entertaining movie about such a huge personality as Napoleon? I'm not even gonna get into the weird psychosexual stuff, or Letizia Bonaparte being turned into a creepier version of Barry Lyndon's mom. Just go watch Waterloo, or Barry Lyndon, or anything else.

Many of the events that would naturally adapt to the big screen are skipped in favor of shots of Phoenix crawling under tables like some fucked up dog.

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One of the worst things about this is that Ridley did make an absolutely amazing Napoleonic Era movie - his first one, The Duellists. He knocked it out of the park with literally his first one, and now we've gotten to “When I have issues with historians, I ask: ‘Excuse me, mate, were you there? No? Well, shut the fuck up then.’” (like, my guy, how the fuck do you think history works? "were you there", what kind of retort is this even)

This movie already managed to turn me against it once I saw a poster for it featuring vegan activist Joaquin Phoenix riding a horse

The poster in Hexbear dot net are not happy with the Napoleon movie

That's okay, I will still watch that garbage

im still going to watch that trash

The perfect Napoleon movie exists and it's free

It's called watching War and Peace (1966) following by Waterloo (1970)

you can add in Toussaint Louverture (2012) as additional content

so i guess we're not getting a historical epic revival any time soon, huh

Englishman Filmaker Ridley Scott ancestors telling him to make napoleon look as wooden and lame as possible

well of course it is, it's late era Ridley Scott