Eve Jacoby

First and foremost, I absolutely encourage you not to see this movie. If you only take away one thing from my review, please let it be to not give away valuable hours of your life to watch this. I so wanted to like this, but each tedious minute further destroyed my baseless hope. I’d say it was boring and a waste of time, but that doesn’t truly capture the experience of viewing “Napoleon”. It’s not a waste of your time, it’s an abuse of your time. Let me make one thing clear: I’m not the kind of person to be bored by historical movies. In fact, I have a lifelong obsession with history and bachelor’s degree in history. So, let me reiterate, I’m biased towards enjoying historical films, yet this film still evoked my unbridled ire. The characterisation was paper-thin and the pacing darted between shambolically fast and mind-numbingly glacial. I’ll be totally honest here, I don’t think Joaquin delivered on the acting front. Or the charisma front. Or on any front that would have otherwise given value to this sloppy mess. I think the best way to describe Joaquin is that he was there. Vanessa Kirby didn’t add a whole lot to the film either. I wish I could name a standout character but Ridley Scott seemed hellbent on crafting characters that were both forgettable and just plain bad. Please let me make something else clear. My strong hatred towards this movie is not caused by the litany of historical inaccuracies. I’m open to good films that diverge from the truth. The operative word here is “good”. Even the (clearly) expensive, state-of-the-art equipment used in the making of “Napoleon” couldn’t save this sinking ship. It was sometimes pretty (at best), but not pretty enough to stop me from devising a range of desperate yet creative ways to pass the time during the film (everything from trying to name the US states in order to seeing how far I could reach my fingers back onto my arm). I’d keep going on but this film stole enough of my poor, misused time. Please just don’t do this to yourself.