I have to admit, the first time I saw this film, I was disappointed. I thought Joaquin Phoenix was miscast as Napoleon, and the movie jumped around a lot, and the movie covered to much material for the length of the movie.
However, I enjoy Ridley Scott movies, and nobody does more spectacular battle scenes than him. Some of the battle scenes in this movie are great! Napoleons greatest victory ever, at Austerlitz, is broken down so you can really understand why this victory was so special. It really shows his military genius. The battle of Waterloo is also quite well done.
The things I didn't like, was the film dedicated little time to his worst defeat ever, his invasion of Russia. They cover it so quickly, you don't get the true image of how horrible a defeat it was. Napoleon took 617,000 troops into Russia, and came home with about 50,000! It was an absolute nightmare for his army, and the film dedicates about 15 minutes to this. Also, as said earlier, I didn't care for Phoenix as Napoleon, and there were 4 sex scenes in the movie, and everyone of them, the participants were fully clothed. Really? I thought the French were passionate lovers. In this movie, they are more like Wham,bam,thank you ma'm! I enjoyed the film overall though.