(REVIEW) “Napoleon,” the latest historical war epic by the legendary Ridley Scott (famous for such past hits as “Gladiator”), stars Joaquin Phoenix as the legendary French emperor and Vanessa Kirby as his wife Josephine. 

The movie details the the historic rise and fall of his empire and marriage. The film has opened to mixed reviews, but an unexpectedly impressive box office, and expected to be a big contender at the Oscars. It’s the second such film by Apple this year after their acclaimed “Killers of The Flower Moon” just a month earlier (which I also wrote about here). 

The film has the grandeur and flair that you would expect of a historical epic. The set pieces are lavish and the actors are effortlessly magnetic in their roles. The love story between Napoleon and Josephine is the heart of the film and grounds it well. All of these pieces feel traditional for a movie such as this, and there are very few surprises in its execution. 

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There is, however, little that grounds us in the why behind Napoleon’s ambition. We are told he is ambitious, but aren’t told why. That makes our investment in his rise a bit shallow. We are interested in seeing him rise because he is the person we are following, and perhaps because we find ourselves caring about his love story with Josephine. This is strange because so much of the movie is built around watching him try to achieve his ambitions. 

Not having an investment in his investment leads to an emotional distance between us and the events. As one of my friends says, it creates a sense of “this happens, then this happens, then this happens.”

Why is also a big question when discussing another interesting phenomena – why people, whether historians or artists, love Napoleon so much even though everyone agrees he was a tyrant and a warmonger. Much of the enjoyment of watching the movie “Napoleon” is watching his brilliance in conquering his enemies long before he gets his comeuppance. 

Napoleon is not alone in this. People have long admired “strong men” like Alexander The Great, Julius Caesar and others – despite agreeing that they are tyrants. This tendency to secretly admire tyrants is pointed out, of all places, in the “Star Trek” episode “Space Seed” (the one that introduced Khan) through an argument between Captain Kirk, Spock and the crew about admiration for Khan:

Mr. Spock: Gentlemen, this romanticism about a ruthless dictator is … 

Captain James T. Kirk: Mr. Spock, we humans have a streak of barbarism in us. Appalling, but there, nevertheless.

Scotty: There were no massacres under his rule.

Mr. Spock: And as little freedom.

Dr. McCoy: No wars until he was attacked.

Mr. Spock: Gentlemen …

[Everyone but Spock laugh]

Captain James T. Kirk: Mr. Spock, you misunderstand us. We can be against him and admire him all at the same time.

Mr. Spock: Illogical.

Captain James T. Kirk: Totally.

You could argue that admiring strong men with ambition and ability is natural, and our modern discomfort with it what’s unnatural. As historian Tom Holland wrote in “Dominion,” prior to the introduction of Christianity, people in the West admired conquerors and imperialists with the idea that we should prioritize the lives of the weak and vulnerable alien to them. 

Even today, studies show we look up to people as leaders who often do bad things as long as they do them on our behalf, and see those who serve us within the rules as lower status than us. We admire ambitious people who have the ambition and ability to get what they want because we would like to be able to get what we want as well. 

As I wrote in a recent piece comparing Jesus and John Wick, people like powerful men who are capable of violence because those people can protect themselves and us as well. In fact, Leon Podles suggests in his book “The Church Impotent” that one of the reasons that Christianity conquered many parts of the West was its ability to persuade them that Jesus offered a better vision of the hero than their own culture did.

And yet, post the Christianization of society, where — as Holland points out — the ideal leader has supposedly changed to the servant leader who cares for the vulnerable rather than the strong man who conquers it. 

So why do we still hold out admiration for men like Napoleon? Journalist and author Louise Perry, writing for First Things, argued that the “Christianization” of our society has always only been partial, that it always existed alongside the old paganism, which continues to live alongside Christianity. One place that some modern Christian authors have suggested Christianity is not meeting people’s needs is in the realm of ambition. Authors like Dr. Anthony Bradley and Aaron Renn have argued that the modern Western church demonizes ambition (particularly those by men), conflating it with pride, leaving only the men who reject Christianity as the people who exhibit ambition and therefore the only ones who can inspire the kind of admiration ambitious men inspire.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey, in her book “The Toxic War on Masculinity,” links this attitude toward ambition with the romantic era and the industrial revolution, which for the first time in Western society, linked virtue to the stereotypically feminine traits and vice to stereotypical masculine traits.  

To be virtuous was to be kind and nurturing like a woman, to be evil was to be ambitious and competitive like a man. This attitude was embraced and encouraged by the churches, who charged the “naturally” more Christian women with the duty of making their “naturally” more sinful men virtuous. This led to an entire genre of novels pioneered by evangelical women about evil men who were made Christ-like by their saintly and loving wives. Historian Callum Brown suggested that the demonization of men may have in fact been the greatest cultural triumph of evangelical literature.

We can see this schizophrenic simultaneous glorification and demonization of ambition in how Hollywood treats ambition. Largely, Hollywood movies typically treat ambition as incredibly cool yet always inevitably tied to wickedness. Whether it’s “Wall Street.” “Goodfellas” or “Wolf of Wall Street,” these movies all show men who are ambitious to better their situation. Ultimately, the villain – having to use corrupt methods or hurt people in order to get there – are corrupted by the process. In fact, even in superheroes, the rich heroes typically inherited their wealth (such as Batman or Iron Man), while the rich villains got there through hard work and ambition (Lex Luthor). 

The compromise we seem to have made in our culture between love and hate for ambition is to make movies that supposedly put down ambitious “problematic” men, while we secretly watch them because we actually admire them.

If admiring ambition is inevitable, it’s necessary to have examples you can admire that show a positive vision of what ambition can be and will look like. Otherwise, we will inevitably admire bad men who are at least ambitious, whether it’s Napoleon, or the modern phenomenon of young men modeling themselves off the fictional Wall Street serial killer Patrick Bateman.

There is some hope that is happening. Noted psychologist and author Jordan Peterson is attracting men with a vision of ambition based on the glory of responsibility rather than selfish attainment. The new film “Wonka” portrays the titular character as ambitious without being wicked — and while “Wonka” is probably too whimsical to attract the fans of Patrick Bateman, it’s a start. Christian authors with significant platforms have also started to call attention to the need to form a positive vision of ambition. 

We will always likely want to admire men such as Napoleon to some degree – but perhaps soon we will see a lot more competitors to him lifted up as well. I, for one, don’t see a downside to that.

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Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.