MR Round

I wanted to see this alot, but knowing there's a longer cut coming to Apple it just took any desire to go to the cinema to see this.

devilshalo

Decker

Reviews coming in. They're kind of all over the place. Currently sitting at 67 on Metacritic and a nearly identical 68 on Rotten Tomatoes.

GoldenJCJ

There are a number of reviews on Rotten Tomatoes that mention how much is crammed into the 2 hours and 37 minute runtime.

It’s sounding like (like other Scott epics) the longer “Director’s Cut” will be preferred viewing over the theatrical cut.

story

It has crossed my mind a few times this fall that this and Killers of the Flower Moon appear to have reversed their necessary run times to tell their respective stories well.

DJariya

I guess I'm the 1st one here to see this.

Saw it today in IMAX. Overall, I'd probably give this a C+ It was okay.

I'll list a few thoughts:
Battle scenes were very well staged and directed.
They didn't lighten up on the violence.
Costumes and set designs were also good.

Nothing really special about Phoenix's performance. He did come across as a little hammy at times.
I thought he and Kirby were terrible as romantic partners. Zero chemistry IMO. I felt no connection between them.
The editing is a little choppy. There are some jarring time jumps in the movie that make certain sequences feel incomplete.

For a big historical epic, IMO it wasn't a really memorable experience. It was fine and wasn't outright terrible, but I doubt I'll ever watch this again.

Michael T Hudson

Saw it tonight. I thought it was just OK as well.

Shannon Nutt

I liked this quite a bit. It's not a movie to go to for historical accuracy - but if you want to be entertained, I think you'll enjoy it. The two lead performances are great. The movie does take big time jumps from scene to scene (which I assume will be rectified with the longer TV cut), but I was never bored and enjoyed it throughout.

Dr. DVD

Caught this yesterday and...it was okay. Visuals were great, but that's to be expected from a Ridley Scott movie. I don't think the quirky comedy really worked because they didn't seem to want to commit to any kind of style. For about the first hour it felt like they were going to take the route of Scarface where you know what you're watching is bad, but they're going to embrace the trashy and lurid nature of everything to a point where you kind of go with it and find it entertaining. Seems to me they didn't take that approach and the movie really drags when it's not showing the battle sequences.

DJariya

I loved this new interview with Scott from today. He’s just doing his thing and doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. Sounds like he’ll keep directing until he drops dead.

He’s an accomplished artist and he says in this interview that his storyboards from preproduction help sell his movies to the financiers.

B5Erik

I found Napoleon underwhelming. Not bad, but... Lacking. The script wasn't great. The direction was, for Ridley Scott, kind of pedestrian. Joaquin Phoenix was miscast (barely passable), and the chemistry between the leads was, again, lacking.

This is one of Ridley Scott's weakest movies. Has he done a really good movie in the last 15 years?

Runaway

The Martian

Artman

Had a near private screening with my folks in RPX. Initial thoughts are it's definitely a lower tier Scott film - but a lot of the jarring cuts/edits and some acting choices should be improved in the longer cut. I was also longing for more wide/establishing shots - just seemed like we didn't get as many as usual for this kind of Scott period piece.

And has there ever been two movies with more "recognizable but can't quite place them" actors than Oppenheimer and this one? Just so many from decades past it seems like. (I did guess right on the actor from When Nature Calls)

rocket1312

I will be interested to see if the longer cut ever sees the light of day, because it's possible it could completely change this movie. As it stands, it has moments of greatness (pretty much every one of the action set pieces are incredible), but it's all stitched together in a fairly unsatisfying way. There's a fascinating story to be told here (Kirby is electric and the Napoleon/Josephine relationship is my far the most interesting thing here), and the movie is quite entertaining scene to scene, but it's perhaps too big for this particular format. There are a lot of obvious similarities here with the Russian version of War and Peace from the 60's, but that one gets 7 hours to tell its story. Napoleon might benefit from something similar. Either that or cut the thing down and narrow the focus rather than trying to play all of Napoleon's greatest hits.