I am not much of a fan of war movies. It takes an extra effort for me to stay invested in the movie. Bombs and guns just don’t seem to do much for me in the way of entertainment. However I usually have nothing but good things to say about the creation of a well done historical war time movie. In the case of the new movie Napoleon, that is 1000% not the case.

I don’t really say this about a lot of movies, however in this case it seems necessary. In the most blunt of terms, the movie was so horrendous. I wanted to get up and leave before it was even over. 

To start with, and believe me this is really just the beginning, it was very graphic. Now, just to clarify, I mean that in a hard to stomach, ‘make sure you don’t eat too much before watching this movie’ kind of way. After the first time, and yes this happens a few times, the horse got split in two by a bomb; I was already collecting my things to leave.

Now I am aware that horses, just as well as people dying, was kind of a given in a movie about a war general, but there is also such a thing as too much blood. There’s just something about the audible gasp that is made by every person in a theater, that is very haunting, especially after watching a horse’s insides come out.

On the other hand, it is very easy to get lost in the wow factor in a war movie. Sometimes, if not carefully monitored and thought through, the gore can get a little out of hand, and can make the movie a little gross. It’s a fairly simple mistake on the part of a director, and I probably wouldn’t have been as upset by this, if it weren’t for the fact that the rest of the movie, all the things that have nothing to do with war or a battlefield, were just as vomit inducing, if not worse.

Napoleon himself, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who is already an acquired taste all on his own, was kind of the actual worst. Now it is rumored throughout history that the real guy wasn’t a very friendly dude, in which case Joaquin did a fantastic job portraying him. 

In this film, Napoleon seems to be an allusion to a hero that acts in a way that in every other circumstance would not be okay, but as the main character he gets away with it, so that people who act similarly have an example of a ‘hero’ that will somehow excuse their actions.

I suppose the director, Ridley Scott, meant to do this, in which case I am hoping it was a prolonged lapse in judgment, but either way the movie’s popularity, or lack thereof, was not what he was hoping for. I would also assume that the character Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), was meant to be the character that brings in a more broad audience. This was not the case.

Now this might be at the fault of the directing or the writing, however whichever one it is needs to reevaluate. Regroup. While she did have some okay moments, such as her few moments with Napoleon’s baby, where she voices her sacrifices, even that is overshadowed by the looming dictator that the character Napoleon is turning out to be.

The only redeeming quality that I could see was two very specific scenes where I wasn’t totally hating every second of my experiences. One would be when Napoleon’s brother, to get the French nobles off their backs, says that he will kill his brother if he messes up, and when Napoleon questions him he just shrugs as if to say, it worked didn’t it? Another would be after Napoleon is captured a second time, the man who is put in charge of sending him back bumps his head on the ceiling of Napoleon’s abode, because the ceilings are too low.

There was a certain level of comedy in those particular scenes that calmed me a bit, however it’s hardly enough to make me want to sit through the whole movie again just to watch those scenes.

In short, really don’t bother wasting your time. It’s one thing to watch a 2 and a half hour movie, it’s an entirely different thing to feel like you’re watching a 2 and a half hour movie. I promise, you will thank me later.