“You have embellished my life for 15 years, the memories of which have been etched in my heart,” Napoleon reads during his speech. In the film, the ceremony is attended by luminaries and family, and stresses the couple’s love for each other even through the dissolution of their union. The movie goes deep into their love story: his letters, her affairs, his affairs, and ultimately their very strange divorce ceremony, necessary because Josephine - six years older than Napoleon - couldn’t give the upstart emperor an heir. What they will get, however, besides a difficult-to-place tone and the sight of a horse exploding from cannon fire, is a whole lot of Napoleon’s (Phoenix) relationship with Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), his wife of 14 years and the empress of France.

The battle scenes drag on, the ruler is shown to be a truly appalling lover - neighing as foreplay and thrusting like a hammer - and Joaquin Phoenix is a perfectly reasonable 5-foot-8. What viewers might want or expect from Ridley Scott’s Napoleon - epic scenes of war, sexily torn bodices, and a very short emperor - won’t be exactly what they get.

Napoleon and josephine slot