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DVD Alexander (2-Disc Widescreen Special Edition)
If you're determined to spend three hours with Oliver Stone's take on the personal and military struggles of ancient Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great, you should know that Alexander (Colin Farrell, in blonde disarray) is not half so much fun as mom Olympias (Angelina Jolie) or his future wild bride Roxane (Rosario Dawson). Indeed, it's the women in Alex's life who provide the movie's most satisfying action: Jolie, sporting some kind of Russian accent, wraps herself in snakes while hissing promises of Farrell's destiny; Dawson disrobes and threatens to cut Farrell's throat before shtupping his brains out. The rest is leaden history, supposedly novel because it showcases epic battle sequences and addresses Alexander's great love for his buddy Hephaistion (Jared Leto). But the man-on-man romance is limited to teary hugs, and the battles are indecipherable messes-you have to wait for Anthony Hopkins' narration to tell you what happened (in fact, you have to wait for Hopkins' narration to tell you everything that happens). There's some spectacle on display but, alas, not much that is truly spectacular. --Steve Wiecking
Review(s): DVD Alexander (2-Disc Widescreen Special Edition)
This Alexander ain't all that great
So, according to Oliver Stone, who's never met a piece of history he didn't want to distort, Alexander the Great was a girly man crybaby who let his own men insult and belittle him throughout his whole quest for greatness. The very fact that Stone sensationalized the homosexual malarkey of his Alexander cut the rug out from under this film's feet before it ever hit theatres. Alexander the Great is a name that has resounded throughout history for over two millennia - but the history of that story somehow wasn't good enough for Stone. I think even Freud would shudder at the thought of someone who is not a psychologist or even an historian trying to psychoanalyze a man who died over three hundred years before the birth of Christ. It's unfortunate because this could have been a powerful film.
Skipping back and forth across Alexander's life (Stone apparently thinks is a devilishly clever way to tell a story), we follow the great conqueror's story from his childhood to his death through the eyes of Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins). Born to Philip of Macedon and his exotic first wife Olympias (Angelina Jolie) -who claimed Alexander was the son of Zeus -Alexander (Colin Farrell) had a complicated childhood. Olympias groomed him to be the next king, worrying all the while that Philip would not recognize him as the legitimate heir. Interestingly, Olympias doesn't seem to age a day between Alexander's birth and his ascendancy to the throne at the age of nineteen. We're talking about Angelina Jolie here, so I couldn't get past the thought that this is an Oedipus complex just waiting to happen. Anyway, Alexander replaces his murdered father, sets off north to establish his control over the tribes there, and then just keeps heading east conquering everything that gets in his way. After his daring defeat of Persia's King Darius, he fights his way all the way into India, farther than anyone before him had ever gone. If he had known those Indian tribes had war elephants, I daresay Alexander might have just turned around at the border and headed back home early. Instead, his military exploits extend over seven years. We hear him talk about assimilating the conquered peoples, and he certainly likes to build Alexandrias all over the place, but this grand vision theme of Alexander's life doesn't get enough play in the movie to sufficiently explain his motives.
The movie does have some strengths. The battle scenes are very impressive (except the end of the final one, when Stone decides to get artistic with it), especially Alexander's ill-fated fight with the elephant-equipped Indian tribes. Blood and guts are spilled on an epic scale. Angelina Jolie is mesmerizing as Alexander's devious, snake-loving mother - but I have no idea where that accent of hers was supposed to have come from. Speaking of strange accents, Colin Farrell sometimes sounded to me like he should have been leading Braveheart's forces. He never became Alexander in my eyes - there just wasn't enough substance to his character. If the film had been nothing but battle scenes, Farrell would have been more convincing; it's the scenes taking place between battles that leads this film astray. Most of this time is spent watching Alexander exchange meaningful glances with pretty boys wearing more makeup than Jezebel. The rest of the time consists of all those loyal men who supposedly adore their brave king whining about the length of the campaign, criticizing Alexander's motives and strategy, and making snide remarks about his heritage. There's no way Alexander the Great let his men talk to him the way they do throughout this film. There's really not much leadership on display by here. Alexander's brave, certainly, but he's no Patton.
Basically, Oliver Stone does a great disservice to Alexander the Great, passing him off as a dandy with little strategic genius and even less control over men who supposedly loved and respected him enough to fight and die for him thousands of miles from home. Stone's characterization of Alexander is just plain weird - and that's the whole problem with this movie. Let's hope that the youth of today and tomorrow don't see this film and actually believe they're seeing an accurate picture of Alexander the Great because Stone's Alexander ain't all that great.
The hats were good...
Normally I don't agree with the pointy-headed intellectuals who write newspaper movie reviews, but for once they were right -- this film is awful.
To begin with, the life of Alexander is one of those stories that is TOO BIG to fit into a movie of normal length. There are too many characters, too many battles, too much politics, too many drunken brawls. It really calls for the TV miniseries format.
But Oliver Stone made a tough job worse by using every trite gimmick in the B-movie director's arsenal -- flashbacks without warning, people reading letters, a silly narration by an old veteran (does this make the whole movie a flashback???), and so help me, a sequence where the colors are all changed!!! Ed Wood could have done a better job. To get my brain cells working again, I had to watch SPARTACUS three times.
I gave the movie 2 stars because the spears and armor are historically correct, and the Macedonians even wear authentic floppy sun hats.
One of the great epics
This film stands beside Gladiator and the Lord of the Rings as the greatest epic films ever. Chaos? Of course there's chaos. This is about war and the battles have all the insanity required to reflect the reality of large scale bloodshed. And when we are shown the splendor of Babylon its possible to comprehend what kind of city legends are made of. Alexander the man was not modernized and cleaned up for morals that did not exist when he lived. And the gleaming contributions of Anthony Hopkins and Christopher Plummer seal the deal on the legacy of this film. So suck on it ye petty, small minded naysayers. Alexander will live forever!
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