Joaquin Phoenix Vanessa Kirby Ridley Scott Marie Antoinette David Scarpa Britain France Movie Reviews 11/14/23 Joaquin Phoenix Vanessa Kirby Ridley Scott Marie Antoinette David Scarpa Britain France

‘Napoleon’ review: Another Joaquin Phoenix looney tunes performance as Ridley Scott offers ho-hum biopic

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Excusez-moi?Earlier, when the strategic genius is frustrated by rival Britain’s naval might, he whines like a little boy who’s been bullied at recess, “You think you’re so great because you have boats!”Depicting one of the most consequential figures in all of European history as a sourpuss clown who crazily rattles off nonsense is a brow-raising choice by Scott, screenwriter David Scarpa and the always peculiar Phoenix.After all, a person can’t very well forge a half-million-square-mile, multi-continental empire by being a total moron.But that’s what this Napoleon is — a fool.

Viewers spend most of the two and a half hours (Scott says his Apple TV+ cut will be a merciless four) laughing mockingly at the guy who commissioned the Napoleonic Code.

Our ever-present thought bubble: What the hell is Joaquin doing?Typical Phoenix gives us his same creepy, whack-job performance from “Joker,” only now Arthur Fleck is accompanied by a pointy hat, massive scenery, impressive battles and a supremely skilled co-star in Vanessa Kirby.The actor’s looney tunes turn is especially confusing because Scott doesn’t otherwise seem to be trying to break any new ground for history epics. “Napoleon” is, by and large, a run-of-the-mill, if rather anemic, battlefield biography.The film begins right when you would expect it would — during the French Revolution in 1789 — and speeds to the beheading of Marie Antoinette and the fall of Maximilien Robespierre.

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