Incredibly Historically accurate and well acted but poorly directed.

Rating: 7/10 (23 January 2005)

In contrast to "Troy", "Alexander" is more historically accurate, but poorly directed.
"Troy" condensed the Trojan War down to a matter of weeks, and poorly characterized most of the main players. Homer was even handed in his treatment of both sides, but in Troy Aggamemnon is stereotyped as "bad" (though he wasn't that good in the epic either) and kill him off because "the bad guy must die", not taking into account that other Greek epics have him as a character. Menelaus is a character in the later Oddysey, but they kill him off. Paris suffers from Orlando Bloom; Bloom tried to play him well, but the writers were making him to "good" when he's more of a mixed character. Still the worse acting and least accurate part of the story was Achilles; reviews proudly present him as the "conflicted, brooding hero"; but this is a 20th century anti-hero. This is the exact opposite of what Achilles is like in the epic, where he's a larger than life bold character. This was Brad Pitt not playing Achilles, but playing Brad Pitt. Eric Bana as Hector carried the movie.
"Alexander" seems to have fixed some problems that occurred with Troy, but many times to a fault. Troy took many liberties with the source, but Alexander is *very* historically accurate (of course, the Trojan War is semi-legendary while Alexander lived during recorded history, but Troy could have been more faithful to Homer's work). Anyway, the film stands as a great biopic, accurately portraying what happened in Alexander's life, and not trying to glamorize any of it or moralize too much (this is not the popcorn flick that Troy was).
The hands down worst element of this movie is the directing. The Battle of Gaugamela is one of the greatest battles in history. Here, the director decided that to show "the chaos of battle", he would fill the screen with dust....so much dust that it impossible to see the battle. Untold millions must have been spent on the CGI effects for this scene, but one gets the impression that they took this image then covered over it with a thick dust cloud so you can barely make out what's happening. I watched a show about Alexander on the History Channel which visually represented the entire battle better than this film did, which is a shame because they actually did meticulously recreate all of the period armor and weapons. They don't really try to show how brilliant Alexander's tactics were. You might say that that would be impossible for a film to do for a mainstream audience, but the History Channel show I saw explained the whole thing in under 4 minutes and did it more clearly (the film does try to explain what's happening, when Alexander lays out the order of battle in his tent, but after that there's so much dust you can't see anything).
Further, at the Battle of Hydaspes River in India later in the film, the director's choices become truly bizarre. At the end of the battle the film becomes *surreal*. The sky turns red and colors shift so it becomes a color palette of basically white and red (image red trees, red outlines, sort of like a weird photo-negative). And Alexander is carried off the battlefield on his shield with his arms spread like Christ on the cross. There is one major problem with all of this.....Alexander the Great won the Battle of Hydaspes. It was a smashing victory. He was not carried off the battlefield. The Indian commander was laid before his feet in triumph. Alexander's army was *never* defeated in his entire career. Also, Bucephalus died of old age, not a battle wound.
The one truly bizarre cut is when Alexander's army refuses to go further into India, then in the next scene they fight the Battle of Hydaspes, *apparently* losing, then they return home. In reality, Alexander fought and won the Battle of Hydaspes, albeit with heavy loss, *then* his men mutinied because they didn't want to face more war elephants and other bizarre creatures of war in India.
Another of the bizarre choices of the directors and writers is that few historical quotes of Alexander actually survive, yet they used almost none of them. When Alexander is forced to turn back from India, he famously "cried...because there were no more lands left to conquer". The movie omits all of this. And when Alexander was on his deathbed, his generals asked him to choose which of them he'd give rule his empire, but Alexander shouted back "To the strongest!". The movie doesn't use that quote at all.
The actual performances by actors, however, was excellent. Even award-worthy. Colin really got into the conflicted role of Alexander and it really feels like he's playing Alexander the Great (not like Brad Pitt playing Brad Pitt instead of Achilles). The writers did a good job of keeping the characters historically accurate, and they don't do anything out of character with their real life counterparts. Though the direction on this film is ungodly. Roxanna was painfully poorly cast.
Bottomline: A truly great epic film can be both accurate to it's source and an entertaining film. Troy wasn't faithful to it's source. Alexander was loyal, almost to a fault as it structure the film as a biopic and less as a film with a beginning/middle/end. The director should be ashamed of the job he put in here. He is a lesser man than he once was, resting on his laurels. The writing is mixed, at times decent, at times bad, but it depends on how well the actual actors were able to salvage it. The actor performances themselves are brilliant, and Colin really poured his heart into Alexander the Great. I could conceivably see Colin nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. I could at the same time see the director nominated for a Rassie.