Well, after I had earlier figured that "Oppenheimer" had a lock on the Oscars for costume and set design, along came "Killers of the Flower Moon". And now, to top that off, we've got "Napoleon".
Well, it's a good thing that Ridley Scott got so many of the little details right (over and above his specialty of huge, multi-extra mass-carnage sequences), because some of the things we normally take for granted in a huge-budget production were mysteriously absent.
For example, where were the sound engineers when Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby were mumbling to each other? How was it that probably the only political figure in world history with as much charisma as Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, and Donald Trump was portrayed as a stolid, dessicated stick? We KNOW Phoenix is capable of so much more than that; it had to be the direction.
What was Bonaparte's motive for trying to conquer all of Europe? Just because he thot he could? Nothing else? Movie does not say, nor even offer hints.
The occasional on-screen captions were nice when used, but why were they used so sparingly? It was difficult to tell where many of the key scenes were occurring. And, even tho this clearly wasn't intended as a straight, historically accurate documentary, would it have killed the momentum of the plot to illustrate developments with a few maps?
With that much cash to throw around, this could've been one for the ages. Instead it's one for a few weeks.
Well, it's a good thing that Ridley Scott got so many of the little details right (over and above his specialty of huge, multi-extra mass-carnage sequences), because some of the things we normally take for granted in a huge-budget production were mysteriously absent.
For example, where were the sound engineers when Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby were mumbling to each other? How was it that probably the only political figure in world history with as much charisma as Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, and Donald Trump was portrayed as a stolid, dessicated stick? We KNOW Phoenix is capable of so much more than that; it had to be the direction.
What was Bonaparte's motive for trying to conquer all of Europe? Just because he thot he could? Nothing else? Movie does not say, nor even offer hints.
The occasional on-screen captions were nice when used, but why were they used so sparingly? It was difficult to tell where many of the key scenes were occurring. And, even tho this clearly wasn't intended as a straight, historically accurate documentary, would it have killed the momentum of the plot to illustrate developments with a few maps?
With that much cash to throw around, this could've been one for the ages. Instead it's one for a few weeks.