Napoleon review — all hail Joaquin Phoenix’s captivating emperor
★★★★☆
Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby are the double act from heaven trapped in a marriage from hell in this new eye-gouging spectacular historical epic from Ridley Scott. It’s a shamelessly ambitious 32-year gallop through the second and third acts of the life of Napoleon (Phoenix), beginning with a startling shot of the future emperor, standing and scowling at the foot of the guillotine in 1793, just as Marie Antoinette is beheaded.
Pedants, beware: this is not a painstakingly accurate history lesson but an impressionistic portrait from Scott, built upon conspicuous visual references to sources as varied as Abel Gance’s landmark 1927 biopic Napoléon, the 19th-century painting Bonaparte Before the Sphinx and even his own Gladiator — a film that also starred Phoenix as
