Alexander the Rear Admiral

Rating: Null/10 (8 January 2005)

Ah...finally a depiction of the life of Alexander the Great that doesn't bog itself down with his achievements. Despite having conquered Egypt, Persia, Babylonia, Syria, Mesopotamia and controlling Greece, Oliver Stone realized that the story of Alexander's amazing campaigns should be compacted into a manageable two battles. I mean, if you can tell me how Stone was gonna cram in another battle and keep the film within the 175 minute time-frame, I'd like to hear it. And what fine battle scenes they were. One was a confusing shaky mess in the desert where you couldn't tell who was winning, or if any strategy was employed. Sure, it would be simple to portray Alexander as an amazing war strategist, but wouldn't it be more fun to watch a confusing battle through the eyes of cameramen having seizures? Of course it would. And the other battle took place in India (hats off to Stone for finding the one patch of forest in the whole jungle) where Alexander failed. By the end of the movie, we had war crammed down our throats so much we could hardly think. I wish.
Actually Oliver Stone decided to take a more taboo route, to maintain his image of a groundbreaking director. The movie should have been called Alexander the Bi-sexual. Halfway through the film I was like, "We get it! He likes girls and dudes! He's Greek, he can't not have sex with everything and everyone" Sure it's nice to see Colin doing what Brad Pitt had been too afraid to do in Troy, but, c'mon, it doesn't take three hours to convey that Alexander has odd sexually tense relationships with his mother, wife, boyfriend, and others. I would have liked to have seen a movie beyond his bed chambers. It might have happened, but Stone was too busy putting eyeliner on Jared Leto or setting up the next sexually ambiguous encounter.
Also, even though he really tried, I think Colin Ferrel was a very poor choice for the main role. It's hard to see such a larger than life character when you're staring at an Irish guy in a wig for several hours. It kind of took away the realism for me, but maybe I'm just weird. And maybe the cast should have worked harder on their accents, while Jolie sounded like a Russian spy about to engage the enemy, Colin and his Macedonian crew sounded like a bunch of maritimers about to break into a little sailing jig. Like in this scene:
Olympias- "In my womb I carried my avenger"
Alexander- "Aww, leff me bide ya daft women. I had them ditties awl lass night and now em awl mops and brooms for shite. Naw give me a daight caike ter I give ye a douse in the chops."
Olympias- "Vhat?"
Sure it sounded completely wrong, but perhaps it was Oliver Stone's way of adding a bit of comic relief. The movie taught me that we can always sacrifice some historical accuracy for Stone's vision. Overall the movie attempted a difficult project and failed miserably. That could seem harsh, but when I see a potential historical biopic turned into scene after scene of Greek Newfies exploring their sexuality, I can't help but be disappointed.