Homosexuality irrelevant, a simply bad movie

Rating: 5/10 (8 January 2005)

And this coming from a Stone fan for whom Oliver's films makeup about 7% (second only to Spielberg) of his DVD collection. I have often defended Stone against critics of movies such as JFK, fully believing his showing the story how he believed it happened as well within his artistic license.
I am therefore disappointed both in this film and in Stone's arrogant insistence that it is doing badly because everyone is homophobic. When I paid money to watch a film on Alexander the Great, I paid money to be shown how Alexander used his military genius to conquer the (then) known world. I expected ingenious military tactics, large scale impressive battles, the workings of the inner demons of the man, his rise and his fall.
With the exception of a few dull action scenes that could easily have been deleted scenes from Troy and Gladiator sown together, all I saw was a man who couldn't get over his mother being childish, naive, crying every couple of minutes and, yes, lusting after various men. Stone is being historically accurate, fans are quick to scream. I will not contest the fact that there were may have been elements of these behaviours in the real Alexander, but were they his defining attributes? Are they why we know who he is today? Are they why he was such a huge influence on modern history? Are they why he was "great"? I think not. In fact I think in comparison to the conquests of this great man, these elements are largely irrelevant and should not make up the bulk of a movie about him. Mere references are sufficient. In Gladiator, Maximus, the main character is straight. Do we have endless scenes with him looking longingly at women just to hit the audience over the head with the fact that he is straight?
Other than the lack of focus on the important issue at hand, the other main problem with this movie is the cheese of it all. Angelina Jolie is comical as Alexander's Russian Bond girl mother. Anthony Hopkins is disgraced into having to read some of the most inane lines in history and Colin Farrell simply looks like a sissy for most of the movie, mostly because of the incessant weeping and whining. The sex scene with Rosario Dawson brings memories of Gigli back to haunt me. I remember the audience where I watched it couldn't stop laughing from all the laughable dialogue being banded around.
Altogether the movie was a waste of time. I didn't feel I knew anything more about Alexander the Great when I left than when I got there, except that he REALLY liked men. I wouldn't advise anyone to watch this film.