Napoleon (2002)

I wanted to but couldn't!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is the first Napoleon epic where the chief speaks with a French accent; that is good. HIs words are his, many of the events are accurate. Because his life was crowded with events, all detail is left out except the love interest of Josephine.This is a modern interpretation, so any glory of war is ruthlessly stamped out, to the point that great battles are always seen as useless slaughter with piles of corpses. Well, in part they are.If you're looking for any of La Gloire, a big part of the period, you'll look in vain. The people rarely cheer Napoleon. We know his soldiers often shouted "Vive L'Empereur" as he passed. Instead, in the film, they barely notice him on the battlefield.Isabel Rossellini as Josephine is seen too often, as (one of the) the women of his life. Murat stands in for all his Marshals, as a film can only pay so many actors. John Malkovich as Talleyrand is very good.An interesting and intelligent film. Clavier plays the part of Napoleon well, although in the interests of covering all his life, he is a bit one dimensional. If you thirst for battlefield tactics, and scenes of battle, you'll be disappointed. Only one battle is covered in any detail is Austerlitz, his finest victory.Napoleon was an extremely intelligent and relatively peaceful man. Most of the wars he fought were forced upon him by European nations in the pay of the English, who could not abide him. He was a better man than they were.

I know almost nothing about Napoleon, but I do know a good movie when I see it, and this is not one. I didn't know Europeans could make movies this bad, but it rivals the worst that ever came out of Hollywood. It's like a six-hour marathon episode of Dallas. If Napoleon had been even 1% as boring and stupid as he is in this movie, no one would remember his name.I can't stand John Malkovich, and I like Isabella Rossellini as a person but she's not much of an actor. I've loved some of the European actors in other movies, but I've never even heard of Christian Clavier and don't wonder why.But what makes this so unbearably bad are the moronic writing and directing. Everybody talks and acts like they're in a 1980s American soap opera, not at all like real historical human beings or even like well-developed fictional characters.Costumes and sets aren't enough to make me love a movie; there have to be believable characters behaving more or less like real human beings. Everybody in this one is as phony and stupid and annoying as J R Ewing.

Detailing the life and times of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon the four part mini-series is a stunning portrayal of one of Europe's greatest men. One minute we are in a tent somewhere in the olive fields of Italy the next we are in a ball watching Napoleon meet the beautiful Comtesse Walweska. Christian Clavier plays a fantastic Napoleon Bonaparte with that cunning and yet short tempered mind that the Emperor is so famous for. Isabella Rossellini does a good job at playing Josephine De Beauharnais and Marie Horbiger plays an equally good Marie-Louise matching the real Empress's personality well. Out of the three women however Alexandra Maria Lara played the strongest character as Comtesse Walweska, the enigma who in the latter stage of the series takes a prominent role. I found John Malkovich's portrayal of Charles-Maurice Talleyrand yet another fantastic performance. Napoleon's family was also represented with great representations of Caroline and of Murat Bonaparte. The role of Fouche was well represented by Gerard Depardieu. In total however I found the series too short, I thought it should have been double the size. The Peninsular Campaign is way to brief in the series and many of the battles are not accurately represented nor really showing Napoleon's real genius which was on the battlefield as well as at the drawing table. The 16 Marshals are badly represented with only a couple being mentioned and Marshal Ney 'The Fearless' is briefly added in at the end to fit the story line. Many of the key points of the era are missing from this otherwise stunning portrayal of one of Europe's Greatest Men.

As a historian, I thought this movie was lacking in certain parts. Yet it had a lot of history in it, which I seemed to me to be correct and well done. There are a lot of beautiful shots, wonderful colors and the art department did a great job in this movie. The costumes of Napoleon and the foreign minister was almost magic. I was taken away by the details of the costumes and the scenery. I was most likely not filmed at Versailles or Paris, yet you had the impression that they were filming there. It was generally well edited and filmed. That said, there are several things that bothered me. For example, when Napeolon moves across Europe with his army and confronts the Allied forces or even the Prussians; they animated this by computers. I didn't think this was at all necessary, I think it would have been a better movie if the director simple left this out (that is what most directors do anyway). The maps rather bothered me, too many details; names and dates of battles covered were enough. The other thing that really bothered me was the whole accents. We are supposed to be watching a movie set in Napoleonic France where people spoke French. Most of the actors don't come from France and so speak with a heavy American or German accent. I first noticed this when Murat was attacking the Directoire and so says "attack" in a clear American accent; this bothered me. I would have preferred to have the movie in French and subtitled.