Is Ridley Scott's Napoleon Historically Accurate?

I can't believe you can make a boring movie of friking Napoleon!!! The guy had one of the most interesting lives EVER.

Trouble is, when Sergei Bondarchuk directed Rod Steiger and the Red Army in 'Waterloo', he achieved a blend of spectacle and psychological conviction that no other interpreter of Bonaparte and his era has come close to emulating.

I waited three months for this and brought my family, It is Awful. A carriage pulled up to Josephine's house six times! Half of it was a love movie and rarely mentioned his other family like his brother, King of Spain. No mention of his wife and son of Austria. No Italian and Spanish campaigns:( Sad to see Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix put their names on this.

It was a terrible movie.

Movie was like "now armies gathering, some artillery shooting, people dying bla bla let's get back to josephine staring at something". Movie seemed so unwilling to show battle scenes and unhappy with them, i felt like apologizing to the movie for desiring to see the general on battlefields.
Also the story was as there was only 1 general in french army so the public and politicians were dependent on him and that's how stupid, awkward sociopath Napoleon gained this power and spent his time doing stupid stuff at home with josephine. Not because he did anything great.
As you told, narration would do really good. In series ROME because of budget reasons they told important event through Caesar's letters some times and those were even adding depth because telling things through the general's perspective.

I still didn't finish the movie because i saw that serious-smart-successful-handsome-british man Wellington doing serious stuff to save the world after watching Napoleon being an idiot for 2 hours and stopped watching, started looking for critiques.

Who was this movie for exactly? Because it wasn't history nerds.

Haven't watched Ridley Scott's Napoleon yet, but I am doubting whether or not I should at this point. From what I've read, critics, moviegoers, and historians alike have all been disappointed by this movie. Ridley Scott's attitude, especially towards historians criticizing the matter, do not help, with one news outlet reporting the following:
"After Dan Snow, a British historian, released a breakdown of historical inaccuracies in a trailer, Scott responded 'Get a life.' "
As a history buff, I understand certain liberties need to be made with historical events in order to have the audience engage with a film, but there are many films throughout the years that have been engaging but respected the history of those events (Outlaw/King, Tora-Tora-Tora!, Gettysburg, Waterloo, A Bridge Too Far, etc.). So, seeing Ridley Scott's arrogant and flagrant disregard of history made me not want to watch this film.
Hopefully, Steven Spielberg would have better luck with his own Napoleon series. Considering how he's working with the Kubrick family in making this happen (Stanley Kubrick had plans to develop a Napoleon film, with those plans serving as the foundation for Spielberg's series), his experience working with what Kubrick had planned (Spielberg took up directorial duties of "A.I: Artificial Intelligence" following Kubrick's death, as well as replicated Kubrick's cinematography to the best of his ability, and his repertoire of successful historical films and TV series (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters of Iwo Jima, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, etc.), he's probably the only person I can trust to direct and/or produce a Napoleon series.

Ridley Scott's Napoleon movie is a piece of sh*t in terms of historical accuracy. Joaquin Phoenix is a great actor.

I just recently watched it and thought it sucked.

There was a sniper rifle in the movie 🤷🏾‍♂️. Like, wtf.

Maybe one day AI will make a better movie.

That looked like a Telemundo novela

One of the things I have noticed that is inaccurate is 95th (I think) asking to shoot napoleon with his rifle with a god damn scope.

I am purposely avoiding the movie, but even this review is a giant facepalm for the movie. Thank you for creating it though!

"We are not a movie review channel so we're not going to rate the movie in terms of its cinematic value."
I will. It sucked. It was boring and long, Joaquin Phoenix would have been a good cast for depressed, old and defeated Napoleon but he had to play a charismatic, young energetic one for 70% of the movie, making him miscast. Everything he did, he did for Joesphine which really boils down his character into a one dimensional cuck, when the truth was far more interesting. Ridley Scott is a hit/miss director and this was his biggest miss since Kingdom of Heaven.

LOL. NO!
Next video.

What else do you expect from these two guys? Did you see Gladiator???

Wow he actually put the a-word into a thumbnail...

horrible , vomity story of his sweaty relationship with a gold digger ,Phoenix's absolute worst role , he's a half asleep cartoon .as you said no context to anything's complete romance novel flop .Ridley Scott once was great at sci fi and fantasy .I grew up in Hollywood seeing his 80s films on hollywood blvd classic theaters..like that place his films became whitewashed, gentrified , touristy shite to make$$$ . make "legend 2' itwould be better than this slop. i can smell Josaphines moldy clothes -i guess dindgy was what the French did while even American Colonies had lili wht shirts ? riiiight . yuck.thats get cinematography huh? no respect for him now

Why does every movie today need to be a 'deconstruction' of the character? Why couldn't we have a film depicting Napoleon as the charismatic, merciful, intelligent, and tragic figure that he was? The movie focuses on all of his (supposed) negative actions, and not one positive thing is said or shown about him. Of all the historical inaccuracies of the film, the most grievous is the assassination of his character. He is portrayed as a bland 'mute', rather than the energetic, witty and intelligent person that he was. Ridley even goes so far as to portray him as hopeless with women, even though, rather than sulking when discovering that his wife was unfaithful, he had an affair of this own, and went on to have many mistresses as emperor (the film makes sure to show us that it is his mother that organises his one affair,- LOL).

this movie is a failure... they should try to stay as true to the storyline as possible, the story is intressting enough, idk why they keep ruining history, when they could tell the truth that is probably more interesting

It was about his marriage more than the actual history...gigantic let down for me.

Scott is a little b..tch he spend that much money in order to make one of the most inaccurate movies ever made about history

i like the movie its just htat the man im protecting is like the ;enemy but my family fights twenty the whole amount of the ar;my but thats all of the men and 35 women ; foutght with 75 sons all died slave sex labor m;ade new but problbly for the man im protecting and ;hell on earth in euprp[e if you dont stop fight ing now motive enought thinks we need to know what happens bofore anyone else

Ya. I’ve watched a bunch of these battle scenes. This looks like a boring movie. How is this possible for a movie based on Napoleons life…to be boring.

tl;dr - absolutely not.

Historical accuracy aside, it was just all in all a hard move to watch. It jumped between scenes so jarringly that it had no flow whatsoever. It also fell into the modern plague that all characters have to have some sort of comic relief. It was the scene where he said “you think you’re so important because you have boats!” That made me decide I didn’t care for this movie.

Why can’t serious characters just be serious these days? Why do they all have to have this sort of hyper emotional, quick to comically flustered anger type personalities? Like why does Napoleon have to act like Hades from Disney’s Hercules?

Ridley Scott's was maybe a great director one point in time but now he's just a hack. This movie is travesty and a pathetic portrayl of military genius like Napoleon.

Highly disappointed in the movie. Disregard his tactical and strategic genius for his toxic relationship with Josephine

No.

The film is quite a disgrace

Worst 2.5 hours of my life! This movie is all but unwatchable!

IF any moviemaker wants to make a movie about Napoleon, it just MUST be a trilogy. The rise to the crown, the reign of the empreror, the downfall after Russia and the end of reign

Is it wrong but I wanna see the 4 hour theatrical film why don't they have that as a bonus I'd pay for it 😢

It was a love movie bruh, it doesn't really show the real Napoleon.

scott is english. the english tend to hate napoleon, the french, and most things continental- and can't pronounce blucher. napoleon is considered the second most influential man in human history. this movie portrays him as a rutting idiot. character assassination. thanks so much for your review.

This film is such a high-budget crap. The worst part is that it will disable other productions of this magnitude, with a more sincere historical/dramatic interest than this.

I wish they empathized the logistics of war...

Personally i would like a isekai or time travel parody just because he was just so great at that time its "unreal"😊

Spero che mi capiate anche se scrivo in italiano. Sono un ragazzo di 15 anni appassionato di storia, in particolare ammiro Napoleone, e la prima volta che ho visto il film al cinema sono rimasto sorpreso e molto deluso: devo ammettere che è più bello il trailer del film. Infatti, come avete detto, il film non ritrae la nota campagna d'Italia del 1796-1797 e il trattato di Campoformio, nello scontro con i mamelucchi in Egitto Napoleone bombarda scenograficamente le piramidi, quando invece tutti sanno, oltre al fatto che la battaglia si svolse lontano da questi monumenti, che Napoleone era anche un importante studioso di storia e che non avrebbe permesso un bombardamento contro le piramidi. Per non parlare di Austerlitz, rappresentata in malo modo, e dell'assenza di Jena, Eylau, Friedland, dello scontro navale a Trafalgar, della guerra peninsulare, di Aspern, Waghram, di Lipsia e dell'ultima formidabile campagna del 1814 per salvare la Francia. Borodino è raffigurata malissimo, come anche Waterloo e marescialli come McDonald, Bernadotte, Junot, Murat, Ney, Seurier o Oudinot non vengono riportati. Blucher non esiste a meno che non venga menzionato, non viene riportata la carriera militare di Wellington in Spagna e nemmeno le principali battaglie della guerra peninsulare, come Veimiero, La Coruna e la decisiva battaglia di Vittoria, tra il fratello di Napoleone, Giuseppe, e il duca di Wellington, e Guglielmo III, re di Prussia, è inesistente. Nonostante i ciclopici errori storici, devo riconoscere invece che la fotografia e le uniformi, sia francesi che alleate, sono correnti alla realtà e sono rappresentate abbastanza bene. Chiedo scusa per il commento lungo, ma Napoleone deve ottenere un po' di giustizia. Grazie mille, ciao!

Ridley Scott has made many good movies, but in this big 200 million flop, is one of Ridley Scotts most bloody and costly defeat ever!

Because at this price, 200 million, there could been made a more better series about Napoleons life and battles…..
The miniseries from 2002 is much much better!

Ridley Scott you are defeated! Do better next time dude!!

I think the best way Ridley can make a movie about Napoleon is just to focus on a sepcific event or series of events. For me the years 1812 - 1814 could be the main focus that Ridley Scott could've used as these years were one of the mose dramatic of Napoleons Life.

According to the film, Napoleon left Elba because he was jealous of Josephine's socialising with Tsar Alexander. But Josephine was already ten months dead when he left Elba. He must have been brooding over it for a long time.

In other words, the film wasn't about Napoleon

I'm surprised this video isn't just 19 minutes of laughing out loud.

While I feel this is an excellent analysis from the viewpoint of a military historian, I suppose a film producer has to also consider his audience. There will be plenty of families coming to watch this as a spectacle rather than history. I would expect plenty of history buffs in the audience who would certainly wince at the errors, but possibly more of the audience will be moved by the drama. I don't envy the producer having to choose which of Boney's battles to dramatize and what sort of spin he should place on Boney's love life. Thanks, however, for the excellent commentary on the other programmes I've watched. John Warner, Australia

The British had Call of Duty Mobile Sniper Pro players on their side. 🤙

Ridley Scott makes a movie based on Napoleons entire career and fails to mention: The Battle of Marengo, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Aspern, Wagram and Leipzig.
Ridley also fails to mention Napoleons brilliant but doomed French Campaign or the War against Spain.
It´s one of the worst movie blunders of all time, nothing is accurate.

I am clearly not in the position to say that i´m familiar with the napoleonic era, just some small bites here and there like the invasion of russia or the battle of Waterloo. But even i know that there was much more that should have been told as the movie ever could have do within it´s limited amount of runtime.