Chelsey Wilson

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Long and a bit dull. It seemed to me like this film composed of some interesting anecdotes/historical events which someone was trying to rush through hashing together. All in all, the characters lacked depth and I wasnt particularly invested in anything or anyone. I also found the dialogue generally weak throughout and at times the CGI was distracting. I did enjoy the soundtrack and styling. Having already known some key points of the history (and yet I wouldn't say in much depth), I didn't find the film all that engaging. There are aspects of Napoleon I was looking forward to seeing which were completely missed and instead they seemed to be focusing on him being just... a bit of an enigma. Not something I would have expected from a film in his namesake. The very brief moment Napoleon explains why he thinks he's good at war is interesting and I wish they'd explored that more to develop it. If the film had shown more of Napoleon's passions growing in life rather than just the slightly quirky flirting techniques I expect it would have made him more human. Some of the editing was odd in that some characters were introduced to the audience and seemed to just disappear, whereby other characters suddenly appeared without really any intro but seemed suddenly very important (Rupert Everitt's character for instance). The only character who seemed to have any kind of depth was Josephine but she still didn't have much of a voice. Whilst I'm usually the last person to advocate shoving a heavy romance arc into every box office hit, the film could have leaned into Josephine some more in order for the audience to have the opportunity to relate to someone. Just...anyone. Otherwise it's just like... "Heres a battle scene. Here's another. Here's another. People died. The end." Perhaps this would have benefitted from being more than one film, rather than a whistle-stop tour around 'Napoleon the romantic', 'the ruler', and 'the military strategist'. Whilst all three are touched upon, none of them really go deep enough to show any real thought or passion behind the one of the most famous people in history. I'm not sure how a film can feel so rushed and yet long winded, but somehow this one achieves it.