Stone over-directs, as usual

Rating: 4/10 (4 April 2006)

I really should have known better than to watch an Oliver Stone movie on a historical subject. He is, or was, capable of making entertaining movies, such as Wall Street or U-Turn. But these days he seems more interested in making "art". Some of the acting was OK, given the script, such as Anthony Hopkins and Rosario Dawson. But the script was terrible. Stone apparently wanted to make some kind of point about homosexuality. Okay, we all know about Greeks, past and present. It's kind of revolting, though, having this pushed into our faces about a historical figure. I'm no scholar about Alexandar, but from what I have read, war and conquest were all he ever really cared about. I didn't think Colin Farrell was very good, but he may have been handicapped by the script, and by Stone. He seemed like such a talent in Tigerland. Which brings us to the worst thing about this film, the usual Oliver Stone over-directing. Overall, the cuts back and forth in time were done poorly, making the whole film seem disjointed. And the washout colors during and after the Indian battle scene were awful. The cutting camera action was pretty bad, too, but I suppose this was done to cover up the computer-generated war elephants. I could write more, but I'll just say that you should skip this one.