Review: ‘Napoleon’: A Grand Yet Uneven Epic from Ridley Scott

At the age of 85, Ridley Scott is still consistently releasing films every couple of years around the holidays. Scott has been a Hollywood titan since he directed the legendary film Alien in 1979. Since then, he has had the budget to make any movie he wants, and Ridley is not afraid to take a big swing. Napoleon is his latest effort, detailing the life of the French general with Joaquin Phoenix in the titular role, analyzing his battles as well as his intense relationship with his wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby). The movie draws heavily from Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, which was adapted from a novel that was written shortly after Napoleon Bonaparte’s death. Kubrick famously attempted to make a movie about Napoleon but could not get the project off the ground. Ridley Scott realizes Kubrick’s idea 50 years later, although Napoleon still feels as though something is missing.

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Review: Does the Plot of ‘Tetris’ Fall into Place?

“They’ll make a movie about anything these days!” is what most of us likely said upon hearing that a movie about Tetris was being released. It’s been said before— and it’ll be said again— but the film industry is completely oversaturated with biopics and corporate/product origin stories right now. Seeing so many films of this same genre coming out at once makes it hard to get excited about any of them; they tend to come off as an inauthentic cash grab more than anything else. An entire film dedicated to an old computer game where you have to line up falling blocks almost sounds like a joke at this point. And yet, despite everything that should be working against it, Tetris manages to not only be a pretty solid thriller but also a pretty fun time.

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