Plot: “Napoleon: The Director’s Cut” stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor and military leader. The film is a fresh and personal look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine, played by Vanessa Kirby. The director’s cut delves deeper into Josephine’s origin story and features more extravagant costumes, new larger-than-life sets, and the previously unreleased Battle of Marengo scene. The audience is also given more details about Napoleon’s demise, from his attempted assassination to his failed invasion of Russia.
Review: When Ridley Scott’s Napoleon debuted in 2023, it received a less than enthusiastic welcome. While our own Chris Bumbray gave the film a positive score, he was the exception to the rule. The majority of critics and audiences found the film to be ambitious. Solid performances led by Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. Still, the running time and a lack of anything distinguishing the film from countless other historical biopics left Napoleon exiled when awards season came around. Ridley Scott consistently stated that he had a significantly longer cut of the film that would see the light of day on AppleTV+, but we heard nothing until now. AppleTV+ surprised everyone with the release of Napoleon: The Director’s Cut this week, complete with almost an hour of additional footage. Having seen the extended cut, I can say that while it makes some improvements with added focus on Vanessa Kirby’s Josephine, the rest of the added footage does little to alter the original reception the film received.
Ridley Scott is no stranger to director’s cuts with the new version of Napoleon, his eighth revision of one of his films, three of which were on Blade Runner alone. While his extended cut of Kingdom of Heaven has been proclaimed one of the definitive director’s cuts of all time, his cut of Napoleon does not fundamentally change the movie’s path, tone, or narrative. Most of Napoleon‘s budget was spent on the vast battle sequences, which remained unchanged. The footage added predominantly includes quieter moments. Few of the changes are entirely new scenes, but a minute or two here and there, which continue scenes in the theatrical cut. Watching the film, I had the theatrical cut running simultaneously to spot the changes, and almost none of them represented wholly new sequences we had not seen before. This gives the perception that the cuts were made to help with the pacing rather than their relevance to the overall narrative of Napoleon.
The biggest change over the first hour and a half of the film is an earlier introduction for Josephine, showing how the death of her first husband and subsequent imprisonment lead to her willingness to be courted by Napoleon. These added moments are intercut with Napoleon’s rise to prominence and offer a better glimpse at how Josephine’s fall allowed her to cross paths with the future Emperor. The official synopsis calls out the addition of the Battle of Marengo, which amounts to thirty seconds, but it is a pretty brutal thirty seconds. Multiple scenes expand upon the Russians and their perception of the French emperor, additional time spent with Napoleon marching back from Moscow in freezing conditions, and the shocking losses he experiences on that journey, directly leading to his first exile. The film’s final act remains relatively intact, with only a few minutes of added footage from Napoleon’s conversation with Wellesley (Rupert Everett) and some moments in his second exile.
Looking at the two cuts of Napoleon, the Director’s Cut proves Vanessa Kirby’s talents as an actress. By giving additional insight into Josephine’s personality, her control over Napoleon makes more sense. Kirby explains that Ridley Scott should have centered the film on her character and made Napoleon a supporting player in his own story. As good of an actor as Joaquin Phoenix is, his portrayal of Napoleon has an aloof and boring quality that does not work in this film. One additional scene shows Napoleon grieving the death of Josephine by crawling into her bed and covering himself with her blanket. This quiet moment shows the depths of Napoleon’s love for Josephine. But this scene feels offset by an added moment of the Emperor using the toilet and finding it full of blood. One scene feels pertinent to the character’s pathos, while the other is unnecessary. A more perfect analysis of this film may not be possible
David Scarpa, who began researching Napoleon with a cursory knowledge of the man he was writing about, aimed to emulate Ridley Scott’s feature film debut, The Duellists, and Milos Forman’s Oscar-winning Amadeus. There are certainly parallels between the brash and childish Mozart performance from Tom Hulce and Joaquin Phoenix’s spoiled brat take on Napoleon. Still, where Mozart’s portrayal fits in the tone of Amadeus, Phoenix feels incongruous in this film. Ridley Scott is a master filmmaker, and the epic battle sequences in Napoleon remain as striking as his work in Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator. Both films have a distinctiveness that makes them memorable films on their own, while Napoleon feels no different than countless movies that came before it. I had hoped there was excised footage from the battles to energize this film and give Ridley Scott a reason to justify turning this into a four-hour movie, but I am disappointed. There is no doubt about the quality of the production values or the cinematic scale of Napoleon, but that is no different than all of Ridley Scott’s aforementioned films.
While Ridley Scott initially said his director’s cut would run 250 minutes, the version released to AppleTV+ clocks in at 206 minutes. Whether that means there is another version of the film that could see the light of day or if this is the acclaimed filmmaker’s definitive vision, it is clear that Napoleon struggles with a weak screenplay that no amount of additional footage can rectify. My original take on the theatrical cut was a 6 out of 10, and this new cut bumps that score up just a single point thanks to the added layers to Vanessa Kirby’s performance. It does not redeem Joaquin Phoenix’s borderline-comedic performance or Ridley Scott’s overall lack of distinct vision for this film. Napoleon is a film that should have been a triumph thanks to the talent involved, but it is far too formulaic to make any lasting impression, something forty-eight additional minutes cannot alter.
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