Helga without the H

Every year* I attempt (with varying degrees of success and effort) to watch as many of that year’s Oscar nominees as possible. For the past few years* I’ve posted reviews of these movies here on this blog. At some point before the awards ceremony, I usually write up some sort of over-analysis and maybe some predictions, but we’ll see if I run out of steam before then. In the meantime, today we cover…

*Except 2022, when I was too burned out from 2021’s binge to give a crap.

Napoleon

[3 nominations for best production design, costumes, and visual effects]

IS IT SALTBURN? NO.

I’m proud to report that I’ve gotten through all of the “big” movies for this year (meaning, every nominee for best picture, acting, writing, directing, editing, and cinematography.) With a few days to spare, I decided to tack on Napoleon because it also rounds out all nominations for production design and costumes, plus is the only film remaining with more than two nominations. Should it be a giant clue when a film is only nominated for appearance and not substance? YES.

This movie was terrible, guys. It was TERRIBLE. I was very, very close to leaving it as a DNF (Did Not Finish) because I hated it so much and it was going nowhere. And it was soooo long. but I slogged through, mostly so I can feel honest when I write this review and claim that I watched it.

Where to start…

How about the start? We were on the very first scene of the film when my husband said, “I don’t understand why they didn’t make this more historically accurate.” I was unaware that my husband was an expert on the execution of Marie Antoinette. I asked what was wrong with the scene, and he didn’t know. He said he meant the whole movie. How would he know? We were literally one minute in! “Reviews,” he answered. Uh oh. This didn’t bode well. I’m a huge history lover. Historical accuracy is important to me. I almost always check the History vs Hollywood for any movie based on true events. What would the site say about this? I figured I’d check in after the film was over. But I just couldn’t wait that long. Joaquin Phoenix shows up on screen, playing Napoleon at his first big battle. “Wait, how old is Napoleon supposed to be here? How old is Phoenix? Why are they having such an old dude playing such a young guy? And why aren’t they trying to age him down at all?” To the internets! Turns out that Phoenix is 49 years old. Napoleon died at age 51. Which means there is no reason why should have someone his age playing this character. it bugged me right off the bat. And, as it turns out, it bugged the History vs Hollywood people, too! It’s the very first thing they complained about!

I’ve read a lot of History vs Hollywood pages, but the Napoleon page is the first one I’ve ever seen where they actually seemed angry. I’ve never seen them give actual commentary, or be accusatory. Usually they just give the facts. But this time they included a section about how dismissively director Ridley Scott has reacted to criticism:

Scott admitted that he was in fact speculating at times but that he stuck closely to the facts that are known about Napoleon. Responding to his critics, he said, “My answer to them is, ‘How do you know? Were you there?'”… The problem with Scott’s reaction is that unfortunately, many will watch Napoleon without ever learning the real history. Thus, articles that address where the film deviates from the facts and veers into fiction are important, as is understanding that the film is first and foremost a piece of entertainment, not a documentary.

This is all spot-on. I, frankly, know virtually nothing about Napoleon. I was looking forward to learning. I learned virtually nothing. And even for anything I did half-learn, I didn’t trust it at all, realizing that the filmmakers basically just made everything up for fun. I spent a lot of time during this film on Google and Wikipedia trying to understand WTF was going on. So that’s the good news; this bloated mess is so incoherent and incomprehensible that there isn’t anything to learn. The story just makes no sense. We get no idea of why or how Napoleon becomes popular. We have no idea why he’s doing wars. We have no idea why suddenly he’s not popular anymore. His relationship with his wife is just baffling (and dang was it weird that he used an American accent and she used an English accent.) And there was no build to this story; no climax, nothing to draw us in, no clear purpose, lesson, or story. I have no idea what the filmmakers were trying to be here. Tonally it was just all over the place. Messy, messy, messy. And boring.

I’ll go ahead and say something positive, though: There was one (and only one) scene that was actually compelling. There’s a scene where Napoleon trick the opposing army into retreating onto a giant frozen lake, then he busts out a bunch of hidden cannons and shoots the ice so that the entire army (including horses- this movie graphically kills an insane amount of horses) falls under the ice and dies. It was intense. It was graphic, well-executed, and exciting. Bravo, that is a well-earned visual effects nomination! But… did it really happen? To the Googles again! Umm… no. Something kinda similar happened: some troops retreated across some shallow frozen ponds. Napoleon hadn’t planned that, but his cannons (not strategically hidden) broke the ice and some guys fell in. It wasn’t the large-scale full-army underwater death the film depicted, with hundreds or thousands of dudes dead. Instead, archaeologists have only uncovered 2 or 3 human remains in the ponds (BUT they found a whole bunch of dead horses). Now, chances are the men just stepped out of the shallow ponds and a ton of them died probably afterwards of hypothermia after crawling away. But that doesn’t make for as exciting of an action sequence so… meh… I’ll allow it. At least it was an actual legend.

Final fun note: there’s a scene on a ship, and I thought, “Hey, I think I’ve been on that ship! I think I’ve been in that exact room!” And I had! They filmed it on the HMS Victory, which I toured in Portsmouth last year. Cool stuff.