There was a point, early on in Napoleon, when Marie Antoinette is taken out to be executed in front of the mob, that I realised I should relax, not quibble over inaccuracies, and simply enjoy the show. The camera cuts to a man in the crowd, and that man is Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Joaquin Phoenix. On the 16th  October 1793, the date of the Queen’s execution, Bonaparte was in fact hundreds of miles further south in Toulon. Is this a significant error? There are many more historical inaccuracies in the film, but by then I had decided that I would be enjoying Napoleon for what it is – entertainment. I’d need to remind myself of the sentiment throughout the movie.

Napoleon (Phoenix) crowns Josephine (Kirby) Empress

We race through his early years – the siege of Toulon and his trysts with Josephine, played by Vanessa Kirby, before we get to the Egypt campaign (where he opens fire on the Pyramids) and then the coup which placed him at the head of government as First Consul and ended the French Revolution. The stormy relationship between Bonaparte and his first wife is the theme throughout, with food fights, childish speak and lots of sex.

There is plenty of humour and in fact around half way through the frequency of laughs increased, so that by the end I’m pretty sure I walked out of a comedy. I wasn’t the only one laughing along and there was a moment of farce that immediately brought to mind the succulent Chinese meal clip of a few years ago. The appearance of the Duke of Wellington, played by Rupert Everett, verges on parody and when Napoleon embarks on a cavalry charge in the dying moments of Waterloo I thought I’d had enough. Ridley Scott has form here, though. The Martian won a Golden Globe for Best Comedy in 2015.

Now all this might suggest I didn’t enjoy it, but that would not be correct. Despite Napoleon being a historical car crash it’s fantastically entertaining, with gorgeous costume design and a great score. Phoenix and Kirby are both excellent, particularly the latter, and I would happily watch it again. With the theatrical release weighing in at two and a half hours, the streaming version will be one hour longer. Scott has made some provocative remarks about historians which has inevitably caused a reaction from those sensitive souls, but the director understands better than most that he is making art, not history, and I suspect audiences will love it. If he manages to attract even a small percentage to the world of Napoleonic literature, I would hope those same historians will thank him.

Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott is out in cinemas Wednesday 22nd November. Oliver Webb-Carter is the Editor of Aspects of History.