Napoleon Bonaparte is a significant figure on my list of historical personalities. Or his genius-level military victories. Or that he almost managed to place Europe under one rule. Oh, and the accidental advances in archeological studies of Egyptian history.
All accomplished without CGI, the smoke, cannon fire and the portrayal of chaotically visceral damage on the battlefield serve well in reminding the audience that Napoleon was a gifted disciple of the art of war.
Napoleon was also reputed to be well-loved by his troops and there are moments in the film where this certainly shines. He was a man of deep but self-consciously expressed passions. He wanted to serve France but was not culturally French. He was despised by the heads of other states for his revolutionary origins, and this accounted for his diplomatic failures, despite having another genius for a diplomat in his service, Charles Talleyrand Paul Rhys.
This is where seeing the film with a Napoleon fan might be helpful. Bonaparte was a socially awkward man with a very provincial upbringing. Though his family was of minor nobility on the island of Corsica nationalistically Italian, but technically French , he was gifted in mathematics and this allowed him to attend prominent military schooling in France at a young age, earning an artillery commission. He had very little experience with women and detested social gatherings where he was painfully uncomfortable.
His devotion to her children, Eugene played by a young Benjamin Chivers and Hortense Isabella Brownson was respected and when he was forced to divorce her to find a younger bride of royal descent — Marie-Louise of Austria Anna Mawn who could provide an heir — their pains of separation are felt palpably by the audience. Though we only see Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo in this film, it should be noted that Wellington was a considerable sore to Bonaparte in what was known as the Spanish Campaigns.
