'Napoleon' review: Time capsule-worthy battle visuals, hypnotic performances

You never want to miss a big acting swing from Joaquin Phoenix. Whether he's reliving the addictive trauma of Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line" or putting a human face on a horrific villain in his Oscar-winning "Joker," Phoenix is never afraid to let it rip.

In "Napoleon," now in theaters before landing on Apple TV+, Phoenix takes on a beast of a role that left such greats as Marlon Brando ("Désirée") and Rod Steiger ("Waterloo") floundering. Phoenix high dives right into Napoleon's bruised psyche. Sure, he comes up winded in a few unfortunate scenes, but as ever you can't take your eyes off him.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) faced the same height challenges as Ron DeSantis, but the preening French commander compensated for his shortcomings with a gargantuan ego that amped his skills as an unparalleled military wizard. Phoenix plays the comic hell out of him.

If you want battle scenes, "Napoleon" boasts five killer-dillers, ranging from his 1805 blood-in-the-snow victory at Austerlitz to his 1815 surrender at Waterloo to the Duke of Wellington (a note-perfect Rupert Everett).

This is territory that Ridley Scott, the film's tactician of a director, stages with power and precision (see "Black Hawk Down" for more evidence of same).

Working with ace cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, Scott relies as little as possible on computer-generated effects, often costuming camera operators as soldiers so they could blend in with the action.

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At 85, Scott is a visionary strategist beyond compare. His battle visuals are more than state of the art, they're time capsule-worthy.

Most actors would get lost in all the smoke and cannon fire. Not Phoenix. He deals with the gravitas of Napoleon by laughing it off. No French accent, not even a plummy British one like the rest of the mostly Brit cast. Phoenix sounds much like his American self and totally gets away with it, letting a cheeky grin sneak in below Nappy's famous bicorne hat.

Scott clearly loves casting Phoenix as emperors -- the actor played the tyrannical Commodus in Scott's "Gladiator" and picked up an Oscar nod as supporting actor. Phoenix may be too loose a cannon for the academy this time, portraying Napoleon as military genius and merry prankster.

But he fascinates all the same, as Napoleon crowns himself emperor, mocks British pride over their navy ("You think you're so great because you have boats!"), and questions the very idea of destiny ("Destiny has brought me this lamb chop"). And just wait till you see Phoenix tangle with Vanessa Kirby as Napoleon's first wife, the Empress Joséphine, who held him in sexual thrall.

Too bad infidelities and her inability to produce an heir got her marriage annulled. "You're just a tiny little brute that is nothing without me. Say it." I'll say this about Kirby -- she's dynamite.

In cramming 30 years of Napoleon's life into two hours and 38 minutes, Scott loses valuable connective tissue, but his film is never less than hypnotic, starting with the rise of Napoleon during the French Revolution, including the 1793 beheading of Marie Antoinette, to his ignominious exile on the island of St. Helena.

When tedium sneaks in -- even bloodbaths can be numbing -- and silliness invades David Scarpa's otherwise solid script, "Napoleon" distracts us with robust spectacle and a lusty duel between Phoenix and Kirby that shows there really is such a thing as intimate and epic.

Scott reportedly crafted a four-hour director's cut that might turn up on Apple. Count me in.