A misunderstood epic

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2008)

I'm weary of the torrent of criticism this movie has received from a number of different angles, some objected to the *homoerotic* scenes, some to the structure of the story-telling, some to the length of the movie, others to things as petty as accents or make-up.
It's unfair and unjustified on most counts, the movie as a whole and what is means is ignored in favour of the bandwagon. The critics slaughtered this movie and for reasons beyond my comprehension there are still people who let mainstream reviews influence how much they like a movie, before and after they have seen it.
This is an epic and it had to be, the scope and scale of Alexanders life and adventure is enormous. This isn't a man who's life story can be summed up in 90 minutes to please the kind of people who groaned at the first inkling that the two main characters Alexander and Hephaistion might actually care for one another, in any capacity whatsoever.
Oliver Stone IMO caught the scale of Alexanders adventure brilliantly, so vast was the potential content that it was inevitable that certain events had to be merged together and others omitted, the price for a watchable historical epic is that the director must include what is absolutely essential and leave the rest.
Stone also handled Alexander and Hephaistions relationship beautifully, Colin Farrell (Alexander) and Jared Leto (Hephaistion) work brilliantly together, conveying the love between friends and comrades, in ways that I feel much of the modern audience just can't comprehend. Aristotle (Christopher Plummer) sums it up perfectly early in the movie when discussing with a young Alexander the virtues of two men sharing knowledge and striving to bring out the best in one another.
That is what their relationship is about, not sex or lust as so many critics assumed and let influence them, in general I feel the whole movie was misunderstood.
If you watch the movie, give it a fair chance.