Cinepals - Napoleon Non-Spoiler Movie Review! | Ridley Scott | Joaquin Phoenix | Vanessa Kirby

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

Jaby and Achara review the latest Ridley Scott film, Napoleon! Starring Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby, the movie chronicles the life and achievements of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. ...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 That was quite the film. Someone had just asked me, what did you think of Napoleon? I said, well, there was a beginning. There was an end, and there's lots of stuff in between. And it was epic, it was beautiful, and I don't know what I feel. I don't know if the movie knows what it feels, to be honest with you. It had a lot of really great things going on. Like, it was beautiful to look at, really wonderful attention to detail, as you would expect,
Starting point is 00:00:27 from a Ridley Scott movie. The performances were amazing. Joaquin Phoenix is always good. I really enjoyed Vanessa Kirby. And there was a lot of focus on the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine. So I was like, oh, it's a love story. But then not really.
Starting point is 00:00:44 I can understand why they did that. I mean, they are trying to root you into something that is universally relatable. You show who Napoleon had undying affection for. And that's what gives you something to sort of hook into. because, like, how do you tell a story about a guy who's a world conqueror? So you have something there that you keep revisiting throughout the story. It was so great in its attention to detail.
Starting point is 00:01:07 It was the scope of it. And the way everything just looked real, I can't tell if there's any CGI in this movie. But I just didn't feel anything. Yeah, it was just like it was really beautiful, but it felt like a highlights reel. And in much, you know, when people say, oh, Instagram is like a highlight reel of someone's life. kind of felt like that, where it was like, oh, these are the main battles in Napoleon's career and let's just show you them.
Starting point is 00:01:36 But I was like, oh, but I wanna know more about like what makes him tick, how he came up with these ideas and why he is the way he is. And instead it was just like, oh, this is the greatest hits of what he did. Joaquin Phoenix's performance was pretty strong. Everybody's performance across the board was very, very strong.
Starting point is 00:01:55 I just didn't really understand what the point of everything was. Hello there. Pardon the interruption. So this is an add-on to the review I did with Achara last night because I woke up this morning realizing what I think was the point, or at least one of the major points, that Ridley Scott wanted to communicate to the audience. There's a very obvious thing towards the end of the film,
Starting point is 00:02:14 which I'm not going to explain, that makes this point clear. But I feel like along the way, Ridley Scott could have done a better job of communicating the idea I'm about to explain, which is very obvious now. You have these bureaucrats and aristocrats, whatever, on top, these kings and queens who are playing this game of chess or monopoly on the world stage, the global theater. While they're playing this dumb game for selfish interests, everybody else suffers. You know, the citizens suffer. Lots of people die. The film does show you a lot of death.
Starting point is 00:02:44 It didn't really occur to me that that was the point. Everybody else suffers. Because the film is so intensely focused on Napoleon's obsession with his wife. It doesn't really go deep anywhere else. If the point is, the kings and queens play and everyone else suffers, I don't feel like over the course of the film, he did a good enough job of communicating that to the audience. It didn't seem like that was the point.
Starting point is 00:03:06 It seemed like that was just a thing that happened. That's that for this interruption. It felt like I was sort of just reading, here are things that happen in Avolian's life. I feel like there was a lot left on the table. Now, I know that there is an Apple TV special edition of this coming that is quite significantly longer, as I understand. And I might have this wrong, but I think it's about an hour longer.
Starting point is 00:03:25 About an hour into this movie, I turned to O'Chara, and I was like, this should have been a show. It feels like it's just kind of moving along at a clip through his life and not really giving me anything definitive that I should be experiencing in this. It's like, this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then the movie's over. And I'm like, why? I almost feel like it's relying on the audience, knowing,
Starting point is 00:03:52 certain things about Napoleon and his personality because like everybody knows you know in pop culture we we've all heard about the Napoleon complex right which is just like oh little guy big ego while a lot of characters were kind of saying oh he's like really egotistical and stuff like that I didn't really feel like it was shown very strongly I don't know if I'm just crazy and I didn't get it there were definitely moments where I felt like Joaquin's performance in this movie was like a more mature version of his character in a gladiator, which obviously is another Ridley Scott film that I love. But yeah, he was just kind of playing that same kind of note. I guess that character was quite egotistical, but I just kind of wanted
Starting point is 00:04:42 to feel it more. 100% agree. I think that there does seem to be a sort of hollowness to the whole thing. Biopics are very difficult stories to do because it's like you have to really take some artistic licensing in order to tell a biopic in a way that is compelling. Because like what you're just following events. You're not really following a beginning middle end. You're not really following an arc. You're following someone's life. How do you turn that into something that is a story that feels like it's going somewhere and is driven? Because while watching it, I'm like, where is this headed? Like what is this about? And it's just like it's a series of skirmishes. It's a series of his battles. It's not even all of them, right? Because it can't be.
Starting point is 00:05:22 He had 61 battles, and what we saw was like fourth or five of them. I feel like they missed out a lot on the whole thing with Egypt, because as I understand, and I could be wrong, that whole endeavor was awful. I don't think the film did a good enough job of painting and illustrating to the audience, like just how screwed up that whole journey was and what the people were like on the way there, right? And what their experience was like once they got there, the realization that what they thought was there wasn't there. Yeah, they just were like, it's hot.
Starting point is 00:05:55 Yeah. You know, speaking of the skirmishes, though, I will say if you are into like war movies, if you're into battle reenactments, this is the film for you. It was just so viscerally shot. Hardcore animal fans are probably going to come at me, but I think they did use real horses. And there just is something about seeing Napoleon and his army and the other army, on real horses, moving around, doing their own thing,
Starting point is 00:06:25 and then in formation, doing battle, which was like harrowing and visceral and just so violent. You're like, oh, my God, those poor people, those poor horses, and everyone just kind of going through the front line and just getting blown up and shot to pieces. It was crazy. I think actually, now that you mentioned that, the one moment that I realized something was CG had to do with a horse.
Starting point is 00:06:52 That was the only instance. It happens early on in the film. It might have been a thing where it's like, we're deliberately doing the CG so you know it's CG, so you know no one got her for real C's, or by and by no one, I mean a horse, you know, like, so they don't get PETA coming after them, right? We saw it in an IMAX screening, but I was like,
Starting point is 00:07:10 but you didn't do the IMAX format. It was like a regular, it looked like 239 aspect ratio. I'm like, this feels like there was a different way to go about this movie. And maybe the limitation was based around the fact that it's an Apple TV film, and Apple TV wants to sell it to its Apple TV subscribers. It felt like that would have been a cooler way to present this particular story
Starting point is 00:07:29 just because of the sheer scope of it. It's like, if there's anything to revisit here, it's just like the battles look fucking amazing. That's the only thing. That's the only, that's my big takeaway. That's the positive. Like, the acting's great. I don't care. There was no greater message to this story
Starting point is 00:07:46 other than people die during war. That sucks. You know, like, that's all I got. But in terms of just like something that hits me and makes me feel something, it's the sheer scope of the battles. Woof, woof. It really felt like it should have been a show that allows us to get into the meat and potatoes of everybody who affected his life and affected his personality.
Starting point is 00:08:07 The relationship with his mom was way underdeveloped. Like, I needed to see that and get into the details of that. So much was just left out of this to facilitate having the coolest battles ever caught on camera. just wish that there was more soul because I feel like he really did try and the actors really tried their best to sell it but for whatever reason
Starting point is 00:08:31 it felt just very surface level to me like it wasn't connecting and I really wanted to like I really wanted to feel his love for Josephine rather than be told it over and over again yeah and be like yeah okay cool get it you're obsessed with this woman
Starting point is 00:08:47 the movie kind of skips through a lot of stuff and I get it you know you're telling the life story of one of the most noteworthy characters in history. Again, all the more reason to do it as a TV show. Now, I understand the caveat to that is you don't get to have the scale that you can with the film. Okay, fine. You don't get to have the scale that you have with the film.
Starting point is 00:09:06 Then you have to pick Elaine because it's trying to do way too much. It's like, okay, give me a specific story that you want to tell about his life. So I understand what we came here to do with this movie. If you want to do a film format because it allows you to It gives you the opportunity to have massive scale. I get it. Pick a story. If you're trying to tell all the stories, do a TV show.
Starting point is 00:09:29 You got to cut corners now. You know, that's my feeling about it. So overall, I'm glad I watched it. And I am so going to watch the Apple TV Extended Edition version. And hopefully there's something to gain from that that we lost here. Yeah, definitely. I feel like there must have been stuff left on the cutting room floor. Yeah, it's going on Apple TV.
Starting point is 00:09:50 say even though I didn't love this film, I say still go watch it because the way to watch this is on the big screen. And IMAX, watching it in IMAX allowed us to feel what we were seeing. You know what I mean? The sound and everything. Yeah, the sound and the visual quality. Excellent. You guys, have a good one. I'm Jabby Koeh. This is Achara Cook. Peace out.

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