Alexander Movie Review:


Who was Alexander? To the Macedonians of 340 BC, he was a dashing warrior king and a supreme ruler. To his enemies, he was a feared conqueror. To me, he was merely a name in the history books -- always followed by "the Great." But to Oliver Stone, Alexander was a man ahead of his time. A man of curiosity and of inspiration.

”Alexander” is the product of Stone's 15-year love affair with Alexander the Great. Since his early childhood in Manhattan's Upper East Side, Stone has admired this mysterious leader. In fact, a brief flash of Alexander appears in Stone's “The Doors”. Attracted by the leadership and manhood traits that populate the Macedonian warrior's legends, Stone always knew he would eventually bring his idol's story to the big screen. But he never had the means until meeting Moritz Borman, a German-born executive with bags of money and the backing of his company, an organization that finances big-budget pictures which don't require a greenlight from major studios.

The product of this collaboration is a swollen behemoth of a celluloid monster -- sometimes mildly interesting, but most of the time downright boring. It wants to be a far-reaching, all-encompassing historical tribute to the misunderstood hero, but instead, it comes off as a disjointed collection of epic filmmaking techniques with neither a glue to bind them nor a purpose to drive them. I didn't really care much about Alexander the Great before seeing this film, and Stone did nothing to change that.

A few scenes in and of themselves are truly breathtaking --including an aerial shot of the battle of Gaugamela where Alexander's 50,000 man army defeated a Prussian army of some 250,000; and a beautifully choreographed standoff of horse versus elephant -- but the film as a whole is a bromidic character portrait short on character and big on opulence.

I'm sure we all know from the over-saturation of the film's trailers that Alexander conquered most of the known world by the time he was 32 years old. How was he able to accomplish this feat? Stone never tells us. Is it more important for us to know about his his bi-sexuality than about what made him such a powerful warrior? In “Braveheart,” Mel Gibson not only successfully depicted William Wallace's personal complexities and leadership qualities, he also brought us right onto the battlefield and disclosed the man's personal military tactics. Conversely, most of the battle scenes in “Alexander” (surprisingly for a 3-hour movie, there aren't that many) are confusing, overly complex and nearly impossible to unscramble. Both films used extremely graphic footage to demonstrate the reality and savagery of hand-to-hand warfare. But in “Braveheart,” we were fighting alongside Wallace's men, rooting for their cause of freedom. I'm still not sure why Alexander was fighting.

And why did he marry outside of his royal bloodlines? Who was responsible for his death? Why do the Greeks speak with Irish accents? The film asks more questions than it answers, which is acceptable for a documentary but hardly satisfying for such an ambitious biopic. In “The Doors,” Stone effectively penetrated the aura of Morrison's poetic soul. Sadly, in “Alexander” he seems satisfied with a superficial depiction of a confused bi-sexual king.

Ultimately the film's balance lies in the hands of its leading man, Colin Farrell. At first I thought he seemed a bit slight for the role of such a mighty warrior, but this may be fitting after all, as Alexander was barely out of his teens at the time of his conquests. Farrell delivers an adequate performance throughout, but always falls flat on his face when attempting to motivate his troops. We all wanted to join the fight after hearing William Wallace deliver his blistering pre-battle motivationals, while Farrell only musters thoughts of how he doesn't match Gibson. Most of the film seems slanted toward historical accuracy rather than character building, so Farrell never really gets a chance to soar.

Val Kilmer pulls his weight as the one-eyed King Phillip II of Macedonia and father of Alexander, but Angelina Jolie teeters on going over the top with her portrayal of Olympias, Alexander's poison-tongued mother. Her accent is more exaggerated than any other character except for a few inappropriate Irish accents that crop up from time to time.

If this movie is an accurate representation of what Alexander was like in real-life, then I'm convinced he was more interesting in myth! Despite its nearly three hour runtime, “Alexander” plays more like a poorly edited History Channel recreation than it does a filmmaker's 15-year labor of love.



Frank Wilkins

Who was the legendary Alexander? Were his exploits merely myth? Why was he so great?

The true story of the legendary Macedonian King Alexander the Great is still debated today by historians and experts on the conqueror. One such interpretation, carved and refined by Hollywood director Oliver Stone, is coming to a multiplex near you.

In Stone’s recreation of Alexander’s life we begin with the would-be king’s birth and then eventually his witnessing the rape of his mother by his drunken father. Then on the eve of his 20th birthday, Alexander (Colin Farrell) has a long discussion with his abused, neglected and scheming mother, Olympias (Angelina Jolie) about the world he is about to enter as a man.

Eventually Alexander has a falling out with his father King Phillip (Val Kilmer) and it nearly costs him the throne as he tries to defend his mother’s honor against a sea of drunken kinsmen.

After Phillip’s death and Alexander assumes the throne, his obsession with conquering Persia consumes him as he tackles unbelievable odds to bring down the biggest empire in the known world. Before his obsession weans, Alexander will have left his warlord mark on 90% of the known world of that era before the age of 33.

Stone’s uncovering of shocking facts and creating debate is nothing new. He unleashed a sea of controversy when he released his overwhelming film, JFK which poked all sorts of holes in a lot of theories pertaining to the assassination of the US president John F. Kennedy.

Stone’s films thrive on controversy and a lot of his films exist just because Stone wants to make people think and analyze the stories and tales they think they know about a subject. Every one of Stone’s more high-profile and successful films have ignited a debate somewhere. This is also true about his Greek epic, “Alexander”.

One of the stronger themes in “Alexander” is the discussion if Alexander was in fact a “bi-sexual”. When telling Alexander’s story I am not sure if his sexuality is what should be a primary focus? Does it really matter or is Stone just trying to stir up more trouble?

In some ways I wished that Stone would have focused more evenly on all the elements he did discuss in this telling. There is a lot of heavy aimed dialogue and impassioned screaming scenes about empire, growth and glory. We have seen all this before. I wanted more from Stone on who Alexander was. Except I am not sure the film answered any of those questions but instead just created more.

There is a lot of dialogue, shouting matches and a carnivorous love scene in the middle portion of the film but little is really said or resolved. I really wished there was another war sequence in the middle of the film. There needed to be more action to liven up the drama.

I really enjoyed the film’s production design. I also thoroughly enjoyed the film’s first epic battle sequence but felt we needed more of that awe and gruesomeness to show who and what a conqueror strives for. The film also never held back in its battle sequences which allowed for total immersion into the utter chaos that was warfare of that time.

I liked Colin Farrell as Alexander. I am not a huge fan of Farrell as an actor but for some reason he holds the film together. I also really loved the venomous portrayal of Angelina Jolie and the cantankerous and drunken performance by Val Kilmer. Angelina Jolie’s performance of Olympias is amazing if you can forgive the accent she chose for her character. I loved the character and Jolie’s edginess just brings out a desperation and desire that is unmistakable.

However Jolie isn’t the only bad accent in the film and it is one of the obvious flaws of the film. From Jared Leto’s Irish pretty boy accent to Rosario Dawson’s over-acted broken English accent, the cast really missed the boat to what their characters should sound like. The film’s dialect coaches should have at least found a common thread. It is strange that Leto sounds more Irish than Farrell when Farrell is actually Irish.

For the film’s length and its countless scenes of endless dialogue, I found that the film lacked a real desire in itself. Stone surely opened up some new questions and gave us a peak at the man but never really fleshed out the conqueror. I wish Stone was more about the story of the man than delivering yet again another controversy.

So Says the Soothsayer

Dean Kish

Oliver Stone has always been a controversial filmmaker by inserting his own choices and ideas into his films like JFK, The Doors, and Nixon. Now comes along Stone’s life long project bringing to the screen the story of a popular Greek legend. Alexander the Great is a historical figure that conquered 90% of the world during the fourth century B.C. by the time he was 25. What Stone delivers with his film about Alexander the Great is a terribly disjointed film that hardly touches on what Alexander (Colin Farrell) did as a conqueror, but more about his psychological problems and bisexual tendencies.

The film is spastically told by an elderly one time solider from Alexander’s army named Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins). This character is more or less interjected to keep the audience updated on the happenings in the film, which or either dull or drastically boring. One of the film’s earliest scenes opens with the introduction of a young Alexander and his totally opposite parents. Alexander’s slithering mother, Olympias (Angelina Jolie), teaches him early on not to hesitate when holding one of her many pet snakes while resting in her bed. The two are then violently interrupted by Alexander’s drunken father, King Philip of Macedonia (Val Kilmer) bursting onto the scene and merely trying to rape his mother. Though his parents have differences, but both continuously give Alexander advice of wisdom and trust as the heir to the throne. Alexander is also taught daily by the famous philosopher Aristotle (Christopher Plummer) and develops a mutual bond with classmate friend and eventual lover Hephaistion. The film then literally jumps forward to where a twenty-something Alexander has begun to conqueror the world from present day Turkey to India.

However, Stone and his team of writers (Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis) decide to spend more time showing Alexander weeping, drinking, sleeping with both sexes, and disobeying his mother, than actually what he did as a historical legend and conqueror. A group of European investors financially backed this 100-million plus biopic to get made the way Stone so desired. It is obvious, because no studio would have come close to backing this film. Alexander is an embarrassing film, not only to audiences, but to history itself. Of course, the Greek culture during this time was composed of egos, drinking, and bisexuality, but it does not necessarily have to be hammer to audiences so many times in a biopic of a great historical figure.

There are in fact only two measly battle sequences in the film, which are gruesome and brutal. Stone continually reverts to Anthony Hopkins to tell that Alexander conqueror this land without problem, so he can move into his personal identity, rather than explain what he did and why. There are also numerous pointless liberties that Stone takes with the story, including a bundle of British accents for the characters that are actually Greek. In fact, Angelina Jolie’s Olympias’ speaks with a Transylvanian type of accent. Stone beats down the audience with Alexander’s bisexuality with more scenes of his sexual notions and actions than his actual achievements. These liberties may be reflected of the time period and the culture, but will not rest well at all with mainstream audiences.

A group of Greek leaders are in fact filing law suits against Stone and Warner Brothers for his depiction of Alexander in this film, which at first seemed a little over the top, but after seeing the film; it is an embarrassing portrayal of this country’s historical icon.

The film is miserably disjointed with its pacing and structure. After about an hour, Alexander is supposedly in his full army-mode due to the death of his father, whose assassination is not revealed until the final thirty minutes of the film in a flashback. Stone stands by the myth that Alexander was the son of Zeus and the choice that Zeus comforted his mother, Olympias, metaphorically in the form of a snake.

Ultimately, this film is not about Alexander the Great and what he did in history, it is about his psychological problems and love for his childhood friend Hephaistion (Jared Leto). Controversy is also buzzing due to an intense love scene between Alexander and his Asian wife, Roxane (Rosario Dawson), in which the scene is distasteful and like much of the film pointlessly over the top.

Colin Farrell would seem like a viable choice to play Alexander, but his performance in the film is probably the most perturbing of his short career. He cries a lot, pouts a lot and of course freaks out constantly. More of the blame has to be put on Stone, for his portrayal of the way the character interacts and makes decisions. Angelina Jolie delivers sinister glares and content performance, even though her accent was from another world at the time. Val Kilmer mostly stumbles around and yells as King Philip and Rosario Dawson is wasted in a humiliating type of way as Alexander’s wife, Roxanne. At least Anthony Hopkins narration yearns for attention, but the film’s structure does not help him too much.

It is hard to believe that a historical biopic of this magnitude in the hands of a strict filmmaker like Oliver Stone could derail so poorly. Alexander is one big and boring mess that will quickly leave the theatres. Moviegoers will be sickened by the very derisory nature of this film’s quality. No one wants to see a film of one of history’s greatest figures centered on his psychological and personal preferences. Audiences want to see a film about Alexander the Great, not Alexander the sometimes drunk and confused. Alexander is an absolute dud and one of the worst films of the year. Perhaps, Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming production of Alexander the Great with Leonardo DiCaprio will deliver what could be a solid historical biopic.

Bailey Henderson

Destined for greatness, Alexander (Farrell) was told by his mother Olympias (Jolie) he would rule the world. After the death of his father Phillip (Kilmer) at the hands of the Persians, Alexander started a seven year campaign of conquest that would see the Macedonian Kingdom engulf the entire known world.

After Oscar success with Gladiator, the sword and sandals epic has found a new lease of life but does Alexander have what it takes to conqueror the box office or will it die in battle? The answer is that it gets stabbed repeatedly and dies a bloody and painful death.

With a wealth of material about one of the most powerful men in the ancient world, Alexander just isn’t interesting enough to hold your attention for almost three hours. The film charts the life of the great leader, through childhood to his early death at thirty-three, showing his raise to power and his military campaign to bring the known world under his rule. The problem with the film is that he we only see his military tactical genius at work once.

Taking on 250,000 Persians, Alexander takes the fight to them and claims an epic victory. This is vividly brought to live on the screen but the problem is that you are not that impressed with what you are seeing. As special effects technology gives the filmmaker the chance to recreate any epic confrontation with all the scope and grandeur that these would have looked like at the time but you can’t help but think you’ve seen this all before and much better. Oliver Stone makes the mistake of taking the camera far too close to the action for the majority of the battle. While this is all fine and good when showing what is happening to the lead characters and the horrors of battle but this takes away a lot of the scale of the confrontation, making the fight seem smaller than it actually was.

Leading the production is Colin Farrell as Alexander. Still Hollywood’s golden boy, Farrell does his best with the material but seems to be lacking something that would command respect and loyalty of his army. This is a man that people would follow to the ends of the earth but Farrell just doesn’t convey this on film. You can’t just put your finger on what it missing but it really does something to the believability of the character and the film. Angelina Jolie has the strongest part in the movie but doesn’t get the screen time necessary to convey Olympias’s more interesting characteristics. We don’t get to know much about her background, her turbulent relationship with Phillip and what happened to her during Alexander’s campaign. As the older Ptolemy, Anthony Hopkins provides the narration for the piece as he dictates the history of Alexander’s life in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Val Kilmer does a good job as King Phillip, Alexander’s father and inspiration. He is the man that Alexander drives to be better than. Jared Leto plays Hephaistion, Alexander best friend and the only person he ever trusted and loved. Rosario Dawson has little to do as Roxane other than look beautiful and treat Alexander with contempt.

Oliver Stone has always been an interesting director, providing his own take on historical events but with Alexander he has gone a little too far. Interpreting history for his own dramatical needs, he makes Alexander a bi-sexual, a conqueror who sees everyone as equal and a misunderstood visionary who was millennia ahead of his time in his political thinking. Some these points may be accurate but it is the way they are delivered that makes you question the film’s validity. In parts, the dialogue is appalling and almost cringe-worthy. At times you feel sorry for cast have to deliver it. He copes with the epic scale of the production well, as you’d expect, as the film is a visual feast in parts but with modern productions values and the amount of money spent on the production you wouldn’t expect anything less. It is the other factors that bring the movie down.

The story of Alexander had so much cinematic potential but what we have here is a missed opportunity that is killed by sheer over indulgence. As he co-wrote, produced and directed the film, the blame for this mess falls squarely at the feet of Oliver Stone. Alexander may have conquered most of the ancient world but he will have real trouble making any kind of impression on the modern one.

Star Rating = * *

Jamie Kelwick

 

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