‘Napoleon’ charges into theaters this Thanksgiving week and lands with a thud, while ‘Next Goal Wins’ offers a slice of charm and comedy.
By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News
The battle of Waterloo couldn’t come fast enough in Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” an overblown prestige drama (158 minutes) about the infamous French emperor. The takeaway? Well, “Boney,” as the European papers call him, is just a mama’s boy who becomes entangled in his wife’s “prized” vagina. “Once you see it, you will always want it,” Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) teases (warns?). And want it he does, but first, he gives Mama Boney the cannonball he fishes out of his horse’s carcass as a souvenir from the siege of Toulon.
The movie charts the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) from “Corsican thug” to emperor and ambitious military leader during the French Revolution and his subsequent efforts to conquer all of Europe. David Scarpa’s script takes a highlight reel approach. Each act contains a spectacle-filled battle scene, beautifully choreographed, lit, and shot. Scott (“Gladiator”) knows what he’s doing with action scenes. No complaints here. The rest of the narrative trips him up, however.
The love story between Napoleon and Josephine plays out between the battles, told from Napoleon’s perspective. Their toxic union, too, is a lot of fire and fury, but to what end? They argued about money, getting pregnant (he desperately needs a male heir to keep this thing going), and infidelities (hers, his were all good). Yet, they couldn’t quit each other.
The script never goes deeper than a quick Google search and focuses on Napoleon’s notorious shortcomings and Josephine’s promiscuity. She takes many lovers and never answers his letters. Their lovemaking is him grunting and her looking for patterns in the ceiling. No great romance there, so why all the drama? Who knows.
Napoleon is insecure about his diminutive stature and makes up for it on the battlefield. “I’m not built like other men,” he admits. That’s the Boney we get, and Phoenix, an Oscar-winner for “Joker,” is serviceable enough in the part—ditto for Kirby (“Mission: Impossible”). They have no chemistry, rendering the whole relationship a big yawn. Ultimately, the movie is visually impressive but not narratively gripping. It’s strategy and conquests devoid of emotion. Scarpa and Scott can’t decide if they should give more attention to Napoleon’s sexual anxieties or the fact that he was responsible for more than 3 million battlefield deaths. Was Napoleon a flawed hero or a power-hungry despot flying too close to the sun? Or is he just some weirdo in a funny hat who coos “nom nom nom” when he wants sex? (Screened Nov. 14 at AMC Boston Common. R for strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content, and brief language. In theaters on Thanksgiving; Grade: C+)
Winning isn’t everything in ‘Next Goal Wins’
Remember “Cool Runnings”? Well, “Next Goal Wins” is the soccer version, an improbable, true(ish) story of American Samoa seeking to reconcile its disastrous 31-0 FIFA loss in 2001.
With the World Cup qualifiers approaching, the team hires Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender), a down-and-out coach with a “colorful reputation,” to kick the national team into shape. The stakes are low, with the objective being to score their first-ever goal in international play, not necessarily win. Sounds easy, right? Just get one shot past the keeper. But his players are a shaggy bunch of ham-and-eggers he deems “talentless” and “unskilled.”
Rongen takes a wrecking ball approach, hiding his fish-out-of-water fears behind a bad attitude. His tightly wound ways don’t mesh with the laid-back life on an island where the speed limit is 20 mph.
Director Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit,” “Thor: Ragnarok”), working from a script he co-wrote with Iain Morris, checks off every sports movie cliche, from training montages to locker-room speeches to forging unlikely bonds to the Big Game showdown.
But Waititi (who also appears in a small part) does it with his signature quirky flair, incorporating nods to “The Karate Kid” and Dolly Parton amid an ensemble of likable characters and picturesque settings. Will Arnett and Elisabeth Moss co-star, and both are woefully underused. Stealing the show is Oscar Kightley as the team’s manager and Kaimana as center-back defender Jaiyah Saelua, the first non-binary player to compete in the men’s World Cup qualifier.
Amid all the heaviness of the stories this awards season, Waititi adds a welcome layer of lightness in effectively delivering a hopeful message revolving around family and the love of the game. (Screened Nov. 13 at Landmark Kendall Square, Cambridge. PG-13; in theaters now; Grade: B.)
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