Napoleon (2023)

 work in progress...or regress...

cos' so many asked me about this, and if i liked it, or is it good, and why this and that...

Well, as far as it goes, for me it was the biggest disappointment of 2023 (see my faved here).

Some expected this like the 2nd coming, I gave up on sir Rid some time ago (last cool one was The Counselor and that was 10 years ago...), I have huge reservations on Alien: Covenant which I appreciated then, as I did with the beginning of Raised by Wolves series, and tahn he killed it, he self-imploded his best films with adding crap to their coda-Blade Runner and Alien that is...I hope he won't f**k up the Gladiator thing too...well, which Gladiator, aha, aka The son of Maxxxximussss...

well, the main problem isn't dramaturgy as some say, or the timing (and I am very sure a 4 hour length won't improve it..) but the casting of  mr. Joaquin "joker" Phoenix as Nap B., in a cross between his Commodus (from 2000's Gladiator) and Joker (2019). An Emo Napoleon ? you got one....Napoleon is Afraid ;)

Ok, now 3 Oscar nods, for set, visual f/x and costumes...no biggie

I liked the music (by Martin Phipps, newcomer on Sir Rid's team) much better than on the last Ridley Scott films, and that was its best asset. 

No performances, no nothing. I started to write about it in Romanian and was kinda mean to it. made me see again WATERLOO (1970), which I saw as a kid on the big screen and was uber-impressed and I gotta acknowledge again that it's such a better film still. And Rod Steiger rulezzz, and he's the man.

also there's the Stanley Kubrick paradoxxx-because Waterloo was a flop Kubrick did not get to do his Napoleon. And that is a pity. Nap B. was to be played by Jack Nicholson. Yes. And they were supposed to shoot in Romania, 'cos we got em horses and costumes. Didn't happen. Kubrick did Brry Lyndon instead, giving Ryan O'Neal a life eternally. 

I have butto see the 5h30 restored cut to see of Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927).  They worked 30 years to redo that. And the original cut was 7 hours. So, even at 4 hours, a Scott Director's cut I guess it won't change the cue too much.