It may be as historically accurate as you want, but it's just plain boring

Rating: 4/10 (13 January 2005)

It seems, as many reviewers in this section rave about, this film is surprisingly historically accurate for what we are used to in Hollywood epics (although not enough for some!). In that respect it is quite didactic, and I thank Oliver Stone for informing me about the life of a very relevant historical figure who, I admit, I didn't know well enough. But taken as a movie, and not a history lesson, I'm sorry guys, but it is boring as hell. And, before you start, I'm not yearning for less "talky" scenes and more battle scenes. In fact, I found that even the few battle scenes (specially the second battle) became a bit boring in the end. I don't mind large amounts of dialog in a film, in fact I enjoy it (my favourite movie of 2004 was Before Sunset, which is nothing but a dialog), AS LONG AS IT IS INTERESTING TO LISTEN TO! And that's the problem here: much of what is said is just not interesting, because it is too convoluted, or too obvious, or too irrelevant, or too repetitive, or too arid, or too obscure, or too adorned, or just doesn't make any sense. And when you have to listen to this kind of dialog for three hours, you just get bored. Stone has fallen into the same trap as in Nixon: he doesn't know when to stop, when to cut, when to just hint instead of giving you speech after speech. In the end, his biopics become farragos, too arduous to follow. I prefer his lighter films, like U-turn, which may be less profound, but much, much more entertaining.