Tedious

Rating: 5/10 (9 August 2005)

This is the story of Alexander the Great (Farrell) and his drive to conquer the known world. Triumph after triumph only fueled Alexander for more, but his army was getting weary of this and wanted to return home. I kept rooting for them. I was getting weary too.
The acting is good, but too many main characters (Hopkins as Ptolemy, our narrator; Kilmer as Philip, Alexander's' father) spoke for too long too many times and this helped some boredom to set in to a point I lost interest in what they were saying. And, I became weary of listening to Alexander going on and on, too often, to justify another campaign. These long soliloquies really serve no purpose but to annoy. Maybe that is why the army bent to Alexander's wishes to push on. It was easier than having to listen to another venting.
The battle scenes were excellent, despite the nervous cameras making me dizzy, but they went on too long as well. If it weren't for the FF button on the DVD Player, the battle scenes would still be playing.
The movie was in a nutshell, way too long, and tedious. And, it's not always okay to try and make our heroes (Alexander) more human to us. But, couple that with long winded utterances, and never ending battles the more-human Alexander is not all that appealing. Do we really need to see all these human frailties? What purpose is served? To show that he wasn't so great? Huh?
Angelina Jolie played a good part as the Queen and mother who wanted Alexander to find a way to kill off Philip and become king. Of course, Alexander is resistant to this as he loved both parents. But, the movie absolves Alexander for any part he played in his father's murder. Was this the truth? Hmmmmm.