Napoleon Review: Vanessa Kirby Emerges as Oscar Frontrunner in Bumpy Biopic

The most infamous man in French history's life story is coming to the big screen. A biopic centered around Napoleon Bonaparte has been in the works for three years, with critically acclaimed director Ridley Scott officially announcing the project back in October 2020. Following Scott to Napoleon would be Joaquin Phoenix, making this film a reunion for the actor-director duo. They previously collaborated on Gladiator, a project that raked in five Academy Award wins. That prestigious honor is what drew Scott to Phoenix for this role, as Phoenix's Best Actor-winning performance in Joker was all Scott needed to see to offer him the titular part. Despite the Scott-Phoenix reunion being the driving force behind Napoleon's development, it's another leading star that steals the show in this epic and magnetic, yet clunky, historic spectacle.

Vanessa Kirby leaves Napoleon cementing herself as the frontrunner for Best Actress. If recent supporting parts in action adventures Hobbs & Shaw and Mission: Impossible showcased her blockbuster credentials, Kirby's portrayal of Josephine de Beauharnais, which almost didn't happen, will remind audiences that her thespian pedigree has only gotten stronger. Manipulative and cunning yet equally innocent and victimized, Kirby's Josephine adds a much-needed level of presence every time she is on screen. Most crucially, Kirby is unrecognizable as the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, consequently immersing viewers in her performance rather than seeing her as a famous face first. All of this comes together to alleviate Napoleon's pacing problem, as just about all of Kirby's scenes come in what can be classified as the film's downtime.

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And that pacing problem does glare. Napoleon covers the titular Frenchman's entire military and political career, spanning multiple decades. This leads to the film often leaping from one year to the next, abandoning most of its core rules upon each time jump in favor of establishing new ones. There are a couple of plot lines that are consistent throughout the 158 minutes but they often make such dramatic forward progress upon scene shifts that a bulk of that narrative weight is lost.

Another pacing woe comes in scene structure. Napoleon kicks off guns blazing with a couple of high-stakes snapshots, like The Siege of Toulon, which ended up being the film's best battle. More battles follow, including the famed Waterloo, but none capture the magic of that initial siege led by a Napoleon bent on proving to others the leadership and strategist value he already internally knew he possessed.

The Napoleon performance by Phoenix is a hard one to decipher. At times, Phoenix is showing signs of a masterclass. He's conniving, callous, and quietly cocky both on the battlefield and in the bedroom (which is legitimately a pivotal piece to his arc). But unlike Kirby, Phoenix is often seen first and foremost as Phoenix the actor, not Napoleon the character, and that might not even be to blame on Phoenix himself.

Napoleon begins in the 1790s and wraps up in the 1820s. When audiences first meet Napoleon, he is no more than 24 years old, yet it's very-much-adult Phoenix standing on screen. Aside from some slight hair changes over the time jumps, Phoenix does not physically age throughout the film. De-aging VFX remains a point of contention and casting another actor to portray young Napoleon would've been a risk, but either alternative would've been better than just leaving him static.

Even if the top-billed performances leave audiences divided, Napoleon has a number of undeniable attributes. The entire look of the film, from the cinematography of big battle sequences down to individual stitchings on the costumes, is as close to perfect as a biopic can get. Napoleon's sound, specifically the mixing and design on the battlefield, is why audiences pay top dollar for a surround speaker system.

While it is far from a perfect picture, Napoleon is an epic worthy of the big screen experience. The valleys stretch far and wide, but the peaks are enough to negate enough of the pacing inconsistencies. For audiences keen on being part of the Oscar nominee season conversation, Vanessa Kirby's performance alone makes Napoleon priority viewing.

Rating: 3.5 of out 5

Napoleon hits theaters on Wednesday, November 22nd.

The Apple Original Film Napoleon from acclaimed director Ridley Scott will first be released exclusively in theaters worldwide, in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment, on Wednesday, November 22, before streaming globally on Apple TV+.