Oliver Stone has finally "lost it..."

Rating: Null/10 (25 February 2005)

Of course Mr. Stone can still sling a yarn, but previously one always felt one at least knew why he wanted to do the project in the first place; now he seems out of sorts, not really knowing what to do with himself. Clearly a lot of material had to be excluded for a palatable cinematic running time; maybe this would have been better as a mini-series on HBO or something. The movie's chief weakness for me is Irish "heart-throb" Colin Farrell in the title role; apparently Stone sees Alexander as a kind of ancient Greek Hamlet, and if there's any quality that Farrell doesn't exude very well, it's self-doubt. Farrell seems confused as to whether Alexander is supposed to be gay or straight or "bi" or whatever and is convincing in none of those capacities. (In the scenes with Rosario Dawson from "The Rundown" I actually worried about his physical well-being.) Also, to be convincing as somebody who had to keep pushing endlessly for new worlds to conquer, there had to be just a touch of lunacy lurking. Maybe Jude Law could have carried it off or even Ewan McGregor. But it's always fun watching Angelina Jolie especially when she's playing with snakes and/or doing an exotic accent, and a lot of the visuals are gorgeous, especially the Babylon scenes. But it's definitely time for Anthony Hopkins to retire, I mean seriously; after "The Human Stain" and now this, he needs to get knighted, settle down and write his tell-all autobiography...