More startling, though, is that the movie is also often eccentric and at times eccentrically funny. You expect refined craft and technique from Scott and the pleasures of spectacle filmmaking at its most expansive. It opens in Paris amid that convulsion of violence called the Terror, with surging, shouting crowds and the metallic hiss of the falling guillotine blade. Aristocrats are losing their heads (Scott re-creates one execution with gory verisimilitude), and Napoleon Bonaparte — a mesmerizing, off-kilter, lumpish Joaquin Phoenix — will soon profit from the chaos. Before long, the story has jumped forward and now Napoleon is in the southern French port city of Toulon, where he strategically routs the Anglo-Spanish fleet that has taken the city.

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Persons: Kane, ” Orson Welles, Welles, Ridley Scott, “ Napoleon, ” Scott, Napoleon ”, Scott, Karl, Napoleon Bonaparte —, lumpish Joaquin Phoenix —, Napoleon Organizations: “ Locations: “ Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Russia, Paris, Toulon