Biggest waste of a movie I've seen yet

Rating: 1/10 (11 December 2004)

I heard so many negative things about this movie. But I went and saw it anyway. I tried so hard to go into this movie with an open mind. I tried so hard to enjoy this movie, even though it was an Oliver Stone picture. Stone is a director I could care less for. I enjoyed Any Given Sunday, but after seeing Alexander I lost all respect for him. Many people, including Roger Ebert, have said Alexander the Not So Great. Believe me, that's putting it mildly. Not so great, is probably the biggest understatement I've heard about this movie. Why doesn't Oliver Stone just stay away from biopics? Okay, he stayed faithful to Ron Kovic's book for Born on the Fourth of July. But he made a mockery of Jim Morrison in The Doors. Jim Morrison is one of the most talented men of Rock. He wrote great music and had a great voice, but Oliver Stone managed to turn him into a drunken fool that took drugs every minute of his life.
Many people have complained about the image that Oliver Stone shows us of Alexander the Great. People say that Stone concentrated too much on gayness, but that is beside the point here. Either way the movie still sucks. I went to see this movie as soon as my local theater opened. Too my surprise I was the only person sitting in the theater. I had the whole theater to myself. I was excited, but by the time the movie was over my excitement had turned into disappointment. This movie is the biggest waste of a movie I've seen yet. The movie has a promising topic and it just goes to waste. With a man called Alexander the Great you would think he would get a better movie. Not only does Oliver Stone screw up showing us Alexander's life, he also screws up showing us his death. While Alexander is lying on his death bed it looks like he's on LSD.
Alexander just has nothing going for it. This movie has so many scenes of horrendous acting that it is impossible to take it seriously. In most scenes I found myself laughing. Every actor in this is just terrible. Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, and especially Colin Farrell where on their coffee breaks when they made this. Out of all these actors Colin Farrell was the biggest disappointment. I expected so much from him after his performance in Phone Booth. Even the accents in this movie are horrible. Why does Colin Farrell talk with his Irish accent? Why do a lot of the other actors? What accent is Angelina talking with? Why is Rosario Dawson's accent so phony? These where some of the many questions going through my head. Alexander the Great has such an interesting story. The man conquered 90% of the known world. After seeing this movie you are left very unimpressed. If you are expecting a good biopic go look somewhere else. If you're expecting good battle scenes definitely don't look here. Okay, we all know Oliver Stone was in Vietnam. When is he going to stop trying to give us Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? The battle scenes in this movie are grotesque and disgusting. You get nauseous watching them not only from the camera being all over the place, but from the gore that doesn't let up. I was looking forward to the battle with the elephant army, but now I wish I never saw it. The whole scene was just animals getting butchered. If you can't stand the sight of animals being slaughtered stay away from this movie. I'm not exaggerating either. That's what the whole scene was.
There are rumors that Alexander was gay, but Oliver Stone, Mr. Controversy, doesn't stop mentioning it. After a while I found myself saying, "All right already, we get the point." I think that if it is only rumors it shouldn't be shown in a movie as being true. There are rumors that Errol Flynn was gay, but should they portray him as gay in a movie? People are always complaining about this one fault. Complain about more things. The whole movie sucks. From beginning to end the movie really sucked. Don't waste your time or money on this trash. Watch Gladiator, watch Spartacus, watch Ben-Hur, watch Alexander the Great with Richard Burton, and watch any Sword and Sandals movie you want, but stay away from this. This movie is so bad I rather sit and watch The Silver Chalice 100 times straight.