As bad as it gets...

Rating: Null/10 (26 January 2005)

It would seem to be hard to make a bad movie of such a subject as the history of Alexander the Great - yet Hollywood has failed hard twice, even 50 years apart! The old 1950s version with Richard Burton seemed to lose momentum and interest halfway through. I saw it in a movie screen in the early 1960s, again in VHS, and, with the proximity of the Oliver Stone blockbuster, got a DVD version at a special price just recently. Always a disappointment. But the new version is a total disaster. The cast - only Anthony Hopkins is decent as old Ptolomey. The rest of the stars, without exception, are just plain awful. The story - they miss some of the great battles, like the siege of Tyre and Issus (where Alexander almost lost to the Persians); also, some of the great scenes, like the Gordian knot. Only Gaugamela is shown in some detail and it is not even a good movie battle! The characters - none of the main characters (Alexander, Philip, Olympia) has even the smallest attractiveness that will make a movie watcher empathize with them. And where are Cleopatra (Alexander's sister), Alexander of Epirus, Mennon? The beginning - to make sure we dislike it from the start, the birth and serpent scenes at the start insure the audiences being repelled from the start. A recommendation - do go and see it! You just will not believe how bad is it unless you do. A second recommendation - read the Valerio Massimo Manfredi trilogy on Alexander. The movie is supposed to somehow be based on this; believe me, the books are much better!