Alexander Conquers Stone

Rating: 5/10 (26 August 2005)

It's impossible, at this late date, to review Alexander without first "reviewing the reviews". The storm of controversy, arising mostly from the United States with a supporting chorus from Greece itself , swirled around the sexuality of Alexander rather than the Oliver Stone movie. The reviews from the gay press condemned Stone for being too coy with Alexander's love life and the religious-right condemned him for being too explicit. Both are wrong. I declined to view the film in a theatre for the simple reason that I think we've forgotten how to make an historical epic and, in Oliver Stone's case, how to direct one. I don't think he knew what audience he was playing to: the largely a-historical audience to whom the film might as well have been about aliens, or to people familiar with both Alexander the Great AND Alexander the Myth. To the former, he provides mind-numbing detail and names, for which they have no use. To the latter, he reduces Alexander to a swaggering paper-cut out, dehumanizing him with pretentious dialogue that wouldn't have been out of place on a Victorian stage. He blinds both audiences with hopeless, amateurish editing and a musical score that would embarrass the cheesiest toga epic of the 1960's. Poor Colin Farrell, a fine actor, is left holding the reins of this runaway horse. I watched the "Director's Cut" version and it seemed to me that Oliver Stone, like the ancient world he tries to depict, was simply overwhelmed by Alexander the Great.