Stone goes so far, but not all the way.

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2005)

"Stay with me tonight, Hephaistion". And with that line you know where you're at, and while Oliver Stone's epic never gets down and dirty with any boy-on-boy action, (long, lingering looks, a lot of bear-hugs and a kiss planted firmly on the lips of a luscious male slave is as hot as it gets), this is, nevertheless, a remarkably frank depiction of homosexuality, or at least bisexuality, for a mainstream studio epic. It's in that lack of boy-on-boy action that Stone fudges things; having gone so far as he does, you just wish he would have gone the extra mile. Did he really think that as it stands this would really play in Middle America? Or maybe by pulling the plug on the sex and concentrating on the violence he thought they just wouldn't get it? Still, it's certainly not the turkey I had been lead to believe. Stone draws parallels between Alexander's campaign in Persia and what is happening in Iraq. Alexander's empire could be seen as a thinly disguised America with a similar record in botched foreign policy. His heart may have been in the right place but massacring the natives wasn't going to win him many friends abroad.
Not without it's little absurdities, (as if to compensate for Colin Farrel's Irish brogue, Stone populates the film with other Irish actors and even has Val Kilmer coming over all Oirish as his father), it is still an intelligent and potent piece of cinema. While it's two battle scenes are brilliantly choreographed it's essentially a talkative epic and clocking in at almost three hours is never boring.
Farrel is surprisingly effective in the title role, Irish accent and all, and Angelina Jolie redeems her recent spate of mediocre performances with a nice turn as his mother. Unfortunately Anthony Hopkins as an ancient Ptolemy comes over too much like Richard Attenborough and none of the rest of a large cast are given enough screen time to make any kind of impression. But it's still well worth seeing and may well turn out to be the most undeservedly over-looked film of the year.