Napoleon: The Director’s Cut (now on Apple TV+) very much warrants the following tagline: Now With More Beheadings! When Ridley Scott’s Napoleon debuted during the 2023 holiday corridor, the legendary director repeatedly talked up his pending director’s cut, prompting some of us to interpret the statement that the theatrical version you were about to pay to see wasn’t so great. (Note: Some of us were right – it was pretty good in fits and starts, but buckled under its own incoherence.) Scott said the XXL version would clock in at around four hours, but when Apple TV+ surprise-dropped it with very little fanfare, the final tally was “only” 206 minutes, or 48 minutes longer than the original. And the result? It’s slightly better, but is it worth sore-assing it through such a long movie? That’s what I’m here to parse, folks.
The Gist: Do I have to sit through all this again? Guess so. What do I remember about the first time? Let’s see: Big battles, Joaquin Phoenix playing Napoleon as a mewling little simp, Napoleon jackrabbiting poor Jospehine (Vanessa Kirby) on their wedding night. I mean, the guy was very bad at the sex! And I suspect that’s true of many dudes with Small Man Syndrome, a wayward definition of patriotism and an unquenchable thirst for imperialism. Do we get to know Napoleon better this time around? Eh. Not really. If you want to know why he is the way he is – read: weird, frowny, withdrawn, powermad, gifted at wartime strategy, serially unconcerned with the satisfaction of his rumpy-pumpy partners – you still won’t get it in this longer cut. Phoenix’s performance has not magically become less inscrutable despite the film’s handful of new and expanded scenes.
But we do get more insight into Josephine, which covers one of the beefs with the theatrical version. She shows up earlier in the film, an aristocrat widow who’s rounded up with other sympathizers of the ousted royals, separated from her children and shoved into a grimy prison. She gets some reassuring advice from a fellow detainee: If she gets pregnant, her execution will be delayed. If not, well, her neck is “like a swan,” so the guillotining will be nice and clean. Bet she slept better after hearing that! Meanwhile, Napoleon is off conquering other countries, barely not dying in battle and returning to Paris in glory, rewarded with brigadier general status. The Reign of Terror is racing along at top speed, and we watch beheading after beheading after beheading, until Napoleon and his cohorts coup d’etat the living crap out of the government, and take power.
We saw a lot of the following in the other version: How Josephine fell head over heels for Napoleon despite his being a miserably dour and awkward slouchy scowler – or maybe she’s just a climber who wants the status that comes with being married to a powerful man? He runs off to conquer Italy and Egypt and whatnot, while she takes a lover (who appears to actually know a palatable move or two in the bedroom), sparking marital discord and prompting his citizenship in Cuck City. There’s coronation, conquest, a marked lack of the necessary offspring to maintain one’s legacy, notable deployment of the word “cocksmanship,” trouble with Russia and a director’s-cut-only battle scene that’s incredibly brief compared to the others, but hey, at least Scott found a way to wedge in another beheading.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Scott notably upgraded Kingdom of Heaven and Blade Runner with his director’s cuts. Same goes for Napoleon, I guess, although the improvements make it slightly less mediocre than before.
Performance Worth Watching: Kirby gets more screentime in this cut, allowing her to get a sturdier foothold on the Josephine character. She’s excellent here, outshining Phoenix, who seems to treat the rendering of Napoleon as a joke.
Memorable Dialogue: Speaking with a friend, Josephine discusses the clearly emotionally stunted Napoleon as a potential romantic partner:
Friend: “Do you find him without appeal?”
Josephine: “No.”
Friend: “Then perhaps that’s enough.”
All of us: “OUCH.”
Sex and Skin: Topless female cellist; bare ass Phoenix; Kirby sideboob; those creepy, painfully unsexy sex scenes.
Our Take: Napoleon: The Director’s Cut allows us to spend even more time with this miserable putz, rendered obscure and not particularly interesting by Phoenix. He only flashes in a few scenes, and is otherwise content to underplay the despot, all buttoned-up and muttery and inexpressive. Underwhelming as the title performance is, the foundational romance between Josephine and Napoleon enjoys more development, and the film more ably accommodates the idea that their love story functioned – at least in this historical-fiction rendering of it, of course – as a powerful undercurrent to the dictator’s, um, achievements? Successes? Brutal conquests that fed his ego and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen? Yeah. Let’s go with that last one.
As in the initial cut, this director’s cut feels wildly uneven, covering 15 years of Napoleon’s life in fits and starts of interestingness. But this is a Ridley Scott film, as ever, so it’s often wildly entertaining, its battle sequences presented with kinetic style and a sense of drama. (Napoleon’s maneuvers against the Austrian-Russian allies at the Battle of Austerlitz are so ingeniously clever, we’re almost tempted to cheer for the creep.) There’s just no overcoming the narrative sprawl, which felt rather long in the two-and-a-half-hour form, and feels even more ass-deadening in the new version, which further dilutes the film’s sly dark-comedic sensibilities. Scenes allowing further development of Jospehine as a full-bodied character mark the most substantial addition, but other moments – many expanded sequences that are tough to notice – feel like filler. It’s as if the most interesting stuff was already in the shorter version. More is, at best, only slightly better in this case, no matter if a master is behind the camera.
Our Call: Extra-strength Kirby and those terrifically visceral battles make Napoleon: The Director’s Cut incrementally stronger, but you’ll feel every bit of the bloat. I say SKIP IT, because this pizza isn’t good enough to eat the whole thing in one sitting.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
