Napoleon
Not a great movie, but I walked out at the end feeling I got my money's worth in battle scenes. Good performances by Phoenix, Kirby and Rupert Everett as a scene stealing Wellington.
I don't mind, for the sake of dramatic unity, that Napoleon is in the crowd as Marie Antoinette is executed, or that he met Wellington after Waterloo. I'm a little more miffed about changes that feel like a betrayal of Napoleon's character, like him ordering his men to shoot the pyramids or slapping Josephine in the middle of a public divorce. Stuff that not only he didn't do, but I don't think he would've either.
I'm willing to believe Napoleon was a weirdo. But because Joaquin Phoenix plays everyone as a weirdo, always, I have to wonder. By all accounts Napoleon was a brilliant military genius and political strategist. The movie resumes his battle acumen as simply knowing when and where to deploy his cannons, while his political career appears to have been a matter of being offered everything he ever got.
Would've liked to get a better sense of the rise and fall of Napoleon. Often the movie ends up explaining the importance of what you've just watched (Toulon, Egypt, Austerlitz, Russia), and the consequences of everything, before you get to appreciate it for yourself. While movies are decidedly way too fucking long these days, this one felt like it could've used a longer running time at 2 hours 30 minutes. Apparently Ridley's releasing a 4 hour version on Apple TV+, which I imagine is going to be the better movie.