Ridley Scott’s upcoming epic Napoleon is among the most anticipated movies of the year. The flick, which is set to hit the theatres on November 22, stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French military commander Napoleon Bonaparte and Vanessa Kirby as Empress Josephine. While the movie is still almost a week away, early reviews are in and they seem promising. Let’s hear what critics have to say about it.
The upcoming movie will take the viewers to the origin of the French military commander and how he climbed to become an emperor. His controversial relationship with his wife, Josephine, is also explored in the movie.
As per various critics, Napoleon has come out to be a good one. The Joaquin Phoenix starrer is being praised for the scale that it is made on, as well as its epic battle scenes. While Phoenix and Kirby’s performances are also getting thumbs up, critics are seemingly impressed by Scott’s vision to bring the ruthless leader’s story to the big screens.
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The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney gave the movie a mixed review and wrote that the movie “for all its brawn and atmosphere and robustly choreographed combat, this is a distended historical tapestry too sprawling to remain compelling, particularly when its focus veers away from the central couple.” While the critic praised Ridley Scott for his “ambition,” he did not find the many plot pieces coming in a “fluid narrative.”
Empire Magazine’s Catherine Bray called Napoleon a “historical epic.” Talking about Scott’s efforts in the movie, Bray had everything good to say and mentioned how the director took a closer look at the emperor’s life.
The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gave the movie a whopping five-star rating and wrote that Napoleon is a “deliciously insinuating portrayal of the doomed emperor from Joaquin Phoenix, whose derisive face suits the framing of a bicorne hat and jaunty tricolor cockade.” Scott’s direction was again the topic of discussion for the critic, as he seemed to be impressed with his craft.
Nicholas Barber of BBC was also intrigued by Scott’s direction as he called Napoleon an “awe-inspiring achievement.” Barber appreciated Scott’s leadership skills and called it greater than Napoleon’s career. One point that impressed him was how the movie ticked off all the major events in the French Emperor’s life.
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich also found Napoleon a satisfying one, but added that the movie was more of a comedy than a historical epic. Ehrlich wrote, “A stinging character study entombed within a sweeping epic that starts like a house on fire before stumbling through the climactic years of its subject’s life with all the grace and purpose of the Austrian army trying to flee Austerlitz, ‘Napoleon’ works best whenever it reads the French emperor for filth, which it does early and often.”
Napoleon has been allegedly made on a budget of $200 million.
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