The Real Napoleon Would Beat Up Ridley Scott’s Napoleon — and Would Do So Quickly
My Review of “Napoleon” starring Joaquin Phoenix
Watch Ridley Scott’s biographical epic film Napoleon and you’re likely to wonder how and why so many people took such a petulant, insecure narcissist seriously.
Napoleon Bonaparte, as portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix (who also starred as Roman emperor Commodus in Gladiator) is a callow, brooding, vain, ill-tempered little boy in a man’s body. This Napoleon is ill-mannered and ill-behaved in politics and diplomacy, selfish and pathetic in the bedroom (especially with his first wife and lifelong confidante, Josephine), and intelligent but mainly lucky (and only then sometimes) on the battlefield. Whatever success he has with the latter is due to the ineptitude or overconfidence of his adversaries as well as his willingness to throw away the lives of his soldiers.
That’s the Napoleon Bonaparte presented to us by Joaquin Phoenix, Ridley Scott, and writer David Scarpa. The real Napoleon wouldn’t give that Napoleon the time of day. But if forced to confront him — either in fisticuffs, wrestling, or on the battlefield — the real Napoleon would beat the snot out of Scott’s Napoleon every day of the week and twice on Sunday!
