Mike A

Disjointed and Rushed. :( (Spoiler free) The biggest disappointment with the whole film, is even if you don’t care about historical accuracy and are trying to learn about Napoleon and follow the story, it’s felt painfully rushed which made it hard to fully grasp many key moments in the film, and it would transition from one event to anther without helping you understand the context of the next scene or how the previous events led to it. You will struggle to understand who any character is beyond Napoleon and his love. It’s ironically a compliment as to how great a story his story was but how hard it is to fit it all into one movie and this film failed repeatedly at trying to fit in most parts and struggled to even help you grasp key parts. My last gripe that is that the film was really good at showing Napoleon's quirky, flawed and very human features but significantly undersold why he is relevant and what all the hype around him was. Without exaggerating, you will leave the film thinking “What was so great about that guy” . For such an underwhelming person why would people care about his story.

Very different from the book. Overall, I think it's visually really well done and has a clever ways of portraying the scale of violence. If you watch this film without an awerness of the book, you will enjoy it. If like me you have read the book, it was approximately a 60% match to the book. The book does an incredible job developing the main character and his bond with his friends and by the end of the story, it leaves you emotionally connected with these soilders and it truly humanises them as regular people in a very chaotic abyss of destruction. This is where the film let me down and missed out entire signifcant segments that were in the book and original film.

Visually good and music is enchanting. That is where the fun stops. I’ve tried to come into this with an open mind as though it’s a fresh story and unrelated to the movies. Unfortunately they have blundered a lot of potential with the way the story is told and the way characters are portrayed, Without spoiling anything, there are lots of plot loop holes and moments that make little sense even if you tried to “go with the flow”. It’s this poor mishmash of a story that makes this an underwhelming watch. I’m still going to see this to the end, but despite not having any expectations, I’ve been frankly disappointed so far. I would not say avoid this series but will also not go out of my way to recommend.