How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

The same question could be asked how does one make a film about the most consequential figure in 19th century Europe.

But in contrast with films about Churchill and Lincoln, which focused on singular but important moments of their respective lives, Sir Ridley Scott opted to put the entire behemoth on the fork, tusks and all, running through the Corsican’s beginnings as a revolutionary soldier in the service of “republican” France, his relationship with Josephine, his rise to emperor and conqueror of the Continent, and finally his literal Waterloo.

Napoleon is as much a tour de force as it is a March on Moscow, long and taxing.

Yet there’s a great deal of value in the film.

The battle scenes are outstanding, possessing the kind of realism of a Saving Private Ryan or Fury.  And the military engagements shown utilized tactics that were critical in the battles, including the cavalry resistant square defensive formation in Waterloo.

While Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t really sound like a French general he certainly conveys Napoleon’s complicated personality- from his insecurities to his arrogance. And Phoenix at least looks the part as much as anyone else in Hollywood with bankable stature does.

But the film gets assistance from the other actors. Rupert Everett delivered a best supporting actor worthy portrayal of Napoleon’s nemesis Arthur Wellesley, better known as the Duke of Wellington.

Vanessa Kirby also played her character well as the romantically insatiable Josephine, the object of Napoleon’s affections and the woman whose conduct caused him great embarrassment and anguish, through her behavior and her inability to birth him an all-important heir.

Kirby had the challenge of being both alluring but not over-the-top vivacious in addition to pulling off the paradoxical role of loving her husband without being fully in love with him- a multidimensional assignnent for any leading actress. Kirby threaded this emotional needle masterfully.

Rather then cramming so much in a single film with so much left over for an extended cut, a trilogy on Napoleon would’ve worked better film-wise and if you’re going to assume that much expense in production anyway, you may as well sell three tickets for the opus instead of just one.

One of the critiques I’ve heard about Napoleon is that it’s no Gladiator.

That’s an unfair comparison as that there are greater limits to push in terms of creativity with a fictional character interacting with far distant relatively obscure figures. Unless you have a classical education then there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius…and even fewer heard of his successor Commodus, the role Phoenix made his own in Gladiator.

Naturally far greater artistic license wss used in that Oscar-winning film (Phoenix in no way resembles the aspiring gladiator caesar he portrayed opposite of Russell Crowe) than Napoleon, where there’s a far greater public familiarity with the subject.

Yet another complaint aired by critics had to do with the accuracy of particular scenes, including showing Bonaparte present at the execution of Marie Antoinette and an artillery bombardment of the the pyramids.

Those same folks seem to not understand the difference between a motion picture and a documentary.  Those striking visuals are included not to state facts but to assist with the story-telling and mass  promotion of the movie.

In the case of the Marie Antoinette scene that opens the movie, it is a most appropriate device conceying that Napoleon was a product of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. That the Austrian-born queen, shown not as a glamorous icon of decadence as she typically is but a terrified prisoner fearful of not just her fate but that of her children, whom she is torn from before being carted off to her appointment with the “National Razor” is powerful and puts Napoleon in context.

At the end of the day Scott closes his film off with the butcher’s bill of Bonaparte’s reign. Yes Napoleon was a lawgiver, ruler, military engineer, lover, and tactician but first and foremost he was a warlord- the extension of the regicide and anti-clerical sadistic opportunism of his times.

Napoleon is worth seeing. If you know your history you’ll enjoy it; if you don’t it might plant a seed of interest.

The crowd at the uncharacteristically packed Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood liked it better than the critics or the history wonks.

This movie isn’t for the geeks, anyway.