For such a famed historical figure, Napoleon has made only fleeting appearances in movies since Abel Gance’s 1927 silent film.
Stanley Kubrick had grand designs for a Napoleon epic that went unmade. (Steven Spielberg is attempting to revive those plans as a series ). Napoleon and his bicorne hat — more icon of history than a real character — mostly only pops up in time-traveling odysseys like “Time Bandits” or “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”
The party, though, is finally on in Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix. Scott doesn’t do anything small, not even famously diminutive French emperors. And his two-hour-38-minute big-screen biopic serves up a
