[ulizzle]

Watched it yesterday and hated it. I was looking forward to it too based on the trailers but it turned out to be a big hit ahistorical hit piece.

For example, no matter what you think of the guy, Napoleon was a bonafide military genius. In the movie, they made him seem like just one more of the bunch. Napoleon was famous for never being bothered by the gore of battle and the buzzing of billets, in the same vein as general Grant. In the movie they made him seem like a scaredy cat

In “Waterloo” you could see why French soldiers joined his cause in droves. Extreme charisma

[LtWorf]

I wanted to watch it but seeing the "ice lake trap" in the trailer I figured I should read some reviews before going. And yeah it seems brit propaganda about napoleon rather than actual facts, at least according to what I read.

[hef19898]

The Brits are still but hurt by Napoleon. Despite having defeated him twice, and being allies with the French in two (!) world wars...

[randomcarbloke]

Why would it be Brit propaganda, we bested him...it would serve us better to paint him as the genius he was...

[jbc1]

Is that the only thing to hate about it? That's it's ahistorical?

If someone was capable of separating the Napoleon they read about in books from the Napoleon on the screen and was interested in watching a movie with some good cavalry charges glued together by a story about some undeserving wuss finally getting his comeuppance, would you recommend it in that case?

[CogitoCogito]

No the movie really just was bad. I’m not even sure what the goal of the movie was. To make Napoleon look bad? To show his human side with his relationship with Josefine? Honestly afterwards I just have no idea. Really it was just a weird speed run through history. They just jumped from random event to random event over the course of like 25 years. Contrast this with the movie Lincoln which portrayed him during a relatively short period of his life. Ignoring everything else (there are many reasons why the Lincoln film is much better), the fact that the Napoleon film tries to cover so much really is an odd choice.

I personally would have walked out of the movie, but I was seeing it with a group of people and didn’t want to be too overly negative. (Afterwards I found out that most felt the same.)

[ulizzle]

That’s a good question. No, I wouldn’t. It’s not one of Ridley Scott’s best works. I’d say if you enjoyed kingdom of heaven then you may like it.

I’d rather watch “The Terror” again

[jjtheblunt]

Was it a lapse in his judgment to start marching on Russia 3 days after summer solstice?

That's not a question meant to be sarcastic: you know more about him than I do, so that always has seemed like a terrible choice of timing.

[ekabod]

100 000 French soldiers caught typhus apparently.

[foobarian]

It always puzzled me not just with Napoleon but a couple other recent European expansionist dictators, why they kept overextending their reach. Why did they not just stop at a reasonable point and reinforce the conquest, instead of losing it all.

Actually maybe Putin is one example where this may be in fact happening.

[fastasucan]

> they made him seem like just one more of the bunch

No? They showed how he excelled to eventual be crowned as a king of France due to his military's success.

[romanhn]

We must have seen different movies, because this one didn't showcase any of his genius. Instead, they opted to show an unambitious little man (not talking about his height) whose fortunes are pushed forward by others rather than himself. Very odd indeed.