'Napoleon' is a hit with the box office, but not so much with critics
Ridley Scott and David Scarpa's "Napoleon" for Apple TV+ has been praised as a masterpiece and mocked as a joke, but its early Thanksgiving opening saw it beat "Killers of the Flower Moon" at the box office.
Image Credit: Apple
"Napoleon" has just begun its theatrical run and according to Deadline has done well. For the Thanksgiving preview screenings, "Napoleon" took in $3 million, ahead of the $2.6 million that "Flower Moon" got.
With screenings beginning at 3 p.m. local time in selected theaters across the country, "Napoleon" easily beat Disney's "Wish," which earned $2.3 million.
However, "Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" beat all other comers with a November 21, 2023, preview earning $6.5M. That's actually a 24% increase on its screenings for November 20, 2023.
Box office vs critical success
"Napoleon" is not doing so well with critics -- except when it is. The Guardian newspaper, for instance, awarded it five stars and said it was a "thrilling biopic." Except separately, the same publication says its inaccuracies mean the film is a travesty.
And another reviewer in The Guardian, Wendy Ide, says the film "only fully comes alive on the battlefield." Praising the performances and the spectacle, she gives the film three stars.
Currently RottenTomatoes shows the film having a 65% approval rating, based on 132 reviews.
It could well be French reviews that are pulling it down. As first collated by BBC News, French critics have thoroughly taken against the film, its characters, and it's cavalier attitude to historical accuracy.
Le Figaro, for instance, says the film should be renamed "Barbie and Ken under the Empire." French GQ said it was "deeply clumsy, unnatural and unintentionally funny" to see French soldiers in 1793 shouting "Vive La France" with American accents.
Then a Napoleon biographer hasn't just disagree with its accuracy, Patrice Gueniffey says that it is a "very anti-French and very pro-British" movie.
Ridley Scott's response to criticism
Director Ridley Scott, though, has been at best sanguine about France's response, and at worst has sworn at critics.
"The French don't even like themselves" Scott said in one of his more polite moments. "The audience that I showed it to in Paris, they loved it."
Elsewhere, Scott has countered criticism of historical accuracy by asking if the accuser was there in 1793, and telling them to shut up, then.
Apple has not announced a streaming date for the film. However, Ridley Scott has said that he hopes Apple TV+ will stream an extended version.
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Comments
Thank you
Having said this, I have not seen the Napoleon film so I can't say if people are nitpicking small inaccuracies, or if there are significant historical inaccuracies. However, I will say I do care about historical accuracy of films that assert themselves to be historical dramas.
It's a great deal of supposition and second-guessing, at best. And it's entertainment crammed into a couple of hours, not testimony.
Of course, it can get ridiculous. I haven't yet seen Napoleon, so I can't comment on that film just yet. The real problem is people will see a film about some historical event and not look up anything about the real version of things. I can't watch For All Mankind because it's truly alternate view of history (of course it doesn't pretend to be factual at all) in some people's eyes will thing that's what happened.... UGH!
Part of the problem is that even when you know the historical record, bits of the movies still come to mind when you think about the subject. It is incredibly difficult to separate the different sources after a while - then again, one should always read the historical accounts with a healthy dose of scepticism as well.
It's not a recent phenomenon, either - Rameses II erected many monuments celebrating his "victory" over the Hittites in the 13th Century BCE, each monument telling a more fanciful version of events the closer it is to Egypt. The Roman Emperor Octavian (commonly known as Augustus) deliberately publicised events during his reign as happening in a different chronological order some twenty years after the fact.
So if anyone is going to watch the Napoleon movie, I encourage them to research the available historical documents beforehand. The first time you encounter information about something you assume it is the truth, and that is very hard to shift later on.
I cared. Even a cursory introduction to the history of the Roman Empire shows that their success in battle came from the rigid formations they stuck to; the first battle scene in Gladiator showed a wild free-for-all and a complete lack of discipline that is antithetical to every account of the Roman Army.
The ending part of the movie where Maximus kills the Emperor and is allowed to live? Moronic.
There were plenty of ways to tell an inspiring story of a good soldier brought down by powerful enemies who then struggles through adversity to find redemption. The Gladiator movie chose none of those, and is the poorer for it.
Want to see better Ridley Scott movies watch The Duellist, Alien, and Blade Runner the first three movies made by Ridley Scott in a row in Hollywood and he has never come close since.
The Duelist is one of the definitive films made about that era starring a young David Carradine and the always great Harvey Keitel. The movie also features a great supporting cast.