Awful. Just awful.

Rating: 1/10 (27 November 2004)

Every time I see an Oliver Stone movie I remember why I promised myself the last time that I'd never see another one. This time it's guaranteed; I'd have to be suffering from Alzheimer's to break that promise again.
The confusion starts with the opening scene: Someone is lying on a bed, dying, and a large ring falls from his (her?) hand. Somehow I got the idea it was Alexander's mother dying in childbirth, but then the scene jumps forward 40 years, to Anthony Hopkins as he describes Alexander's campaigns to a scribe. We don't discover until the end of the film that the opening scene was of Alexander's death. A little while later Alexander has a fight with his father the king, and then suddenly we see King Alexander leading 40,000 into battle. How his father died is not mentioned until a scene that explains it is suddenly just inserted--again, for no apparent reason, near the end of the film.
Not that it mattered; by that time I was so thoroughly disgusted with the sequencing and the girly men and the gratuitous homosexuality and red filtered battle scenes and silly snake symbolism that I could have cared less.
My wife was ready to leave about half way through this ridiculously long, self-indulgent mess. One of these days I'm going to wise up and start listening to her. Do yourself a favor and learn from my mistake.