Alexander- "Stoned" to Death

Rating: 3/10 (20 November 2004)

My hopes were great for this film. What a cast and what a story! One of the most significant figures in history, a compelling and charismatic leader and magnificent military strategist whose personal courage was legendary in his own day, perhaps one of the first true "internationalists" in history, educated by Aristotle---- how could this possibly fail to be one of the most fascinating historical epics of recent memory?
Alexander's back story was brilliantly suited for the rising tension and paranoia Oliver Stone brought to the screen so well in "JFK". Even if you couldn't agree with Stone's version of "history" in that movie, you had to be affected by mounting apprehension and suspicion.
With the murderous war between Olympia, Alexander's mother, and Philip of Macedonia, the father who so strongly influenced him and who paved the way for his world-conqueror son as the backdrop for Alexander's youth, the themes of suspicion and violent intrigue could have carried the film emotionally through Alexander's own death just before his thirty-third birthday. Or themes of triumph about greatness could have made the movie inspiring.
Instead, the film is emotionally flat, killed in the first five minutes by a tedious and unnecessary monologue by Anthony Hopkins (mis-used terribly) as Ptolemy, the historian, describing the greatness of Alexander as a leader, and telling us he's dead. Where was the editor of this film?!? Don't tell us; show us!!! In fact, so many of the significant events of Alexander's life occur off-screen (the murder of his father, for example, rumored to have been engineered by his scheming mother) and are simply told to us by Ptolemy, that the movie never achieves any emotional traction at all. It is tedious and boring, and WAY too long. One of the best comments I've seen: "Come back, "Troy", all is forgiven."
There are films which you don't like because the film isn't to your taste; then there are movies which are just bad movies. This is a bad movie: a truly awful script, a complete waste of some talented actors, and direction so awful that the audience was laughing during the (very, very few) moments of supposed high drama and tension. The CGI portions of the battle scenes were amateurish, and other CGI effects were garish and distractingly inconsistent. Perhaps Stone is trying to get away from the too-realistic depiction of wars and battles from recent years. If so, he succeeded beyond his wildest hopes.The "eagle's eye view" of one battle has frequently been better done by "Beastmaster", Warner Brothers' middle-of-the-night TV comic book/sci-fi/mythology adventure series. In one scene it was evident that someone was holding the eagle.
Beyond "film flubs", this movie is a quilt work of cinematographic mistakes. The prosthetic device that covers Val Kilmer's eye to indicate the one-eyed Philip of Macedonia later shows up on another character. Similarly, an elaborate and unique headpiece worn by a Babylonian princess reappears on a woman in Asia. There are too many "flubs" to detail, but the fact that I noticed them in the first viewing of this film (and I am not typically this critical at a first viewing) is an indication of how little else was going on in the story. When Alexander marries a woman who looks amazingly like his mother (but I know Angelina Jolie, and believe me, she's no Angelina Jolie), the camera work done to show us the similarity is so heavy-handed that you can almost hear Stone screaming through his megaphone: "See, she looks like his mother, you morons!"
As much as I enjoy watching Colin Farrell, I felt bad for him being the lead in this movie. He seems an obvious choice, capable of exuding much power, but the script doesn't serve him well. Val Kilmer brings some energy to the screen as Philip of Macedonia, even if he is portrayed as mostly a drunken lout. Only Angelina Jolie fares well. She mesmerizing holds the camera, and somehow convinces us she is Alexander's devious mother, which is a feat in itself. Connor Paolo, as the young Alexander, did a wonderful job, and his scene taming Bucephalas, the legendary war horse, was perhaps one of the few which demonstrated the qualities within Alexander that made him "The Great". Farrell wasn't given any of those scenes to do; Hopkins as the historian described them for us.
Don't be either drawn in or put off by the hype about the depiction of Alexander's alleged homosexual love affairs with his childhood friend Hephaestion or the Persian slave Bagoas. There are some moist-eyed looks and some hugs, and perhaps half-a-dozen lines referring to the relationships in the first two hours of the movie. It is falsely generated controversy, designed to stir up interest in a movie which doesn't establish any emotional bond with its audience. In my opinion, we should be far more concerned about the fact that the sex scenes with women are violent rapes. The second one, on Alexander's wedding night, designed to be dramatically overwrought, however, drew laughs from the audience because it was just so badly directed.
This is a big budget fiasco. Rent "Ishtar", and save your money. Or wait until it comes out on DVD, rent it, and use it as a drinking game with your friends. Even better, let's see what Baz Luhrmann does with the story next year, or what Ilya Salkind's version looks like. I hadn't realized until this movie that Alexander was "Stoned" to death. Grade: F