Ridley Scott's Napoleon: how accurate is the movie?

There is a case to be made for a feature film titled "Napoleon and Josephine", and Ridley Scott would be the last director out there you'd want directing it. He doesn't really direct actors, he's too busy arranging the extras. If an actor performs well in a Ridley Scott film, it is independent of any influence by Ridley himself.

Ridley, however, is handily the most experienced director of epic battle scenes currently working. And so you expect epic battle sequences, and you would expect epic battle sequences from the point of view of a master strategist named Napoleon.

Unfortunately the battles were borderline incoherent. Every second shot had 3 dozen extras going "rabble rabble rabble", but it meant little. The $200 million dollar budget mostly made it onto the screen, but it didn't come together as a drama, or a spectacle, or an engaging characterization of an historical figure. It's certainly not the film high school history teachers will be showing their students.

If you're going to see the film and are naive to the events of Napoleon's life, read at least the wiki before you go in, because Ridley doesn't do a whole lot to explain or contextualize anything for you.

The one upside to having seen the film is that I'm now more curious about Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars, it's an area of history I've only glanced over in the past.

Not very. Does it have to matter? Gladiator was a romp too.

The duellists was beautiful. I love me a costume drama.

Josephine was 6 years older than Napoleon. She died in 1814 while he was still in exile on Elba, before the 100 days, and he learned of her death there.

Inaccurate, boring, mean spirited, and poorly written.