Europeans won't like this either

Rating: 3/10 (9 December 2004)

After seeing this film I can safely say that if Mr. Stone expected it not to be such a big flop in Europe as it was in America, he will be sorely disappointed. The problem is that most European viewers are able do do what Stone seems unable to do, namely to tell a bad film from an "art" film. Unfortunately slow-motion and coloured scenes are not enough to make a film "artsy". In the whole film there are two battle scenes, and while one is very good (the battle of Gaugamela), with a beautiful hawk's eye view, the other one is very bad (the battle in India). Watch the tacky slow motion part to see what I mean. Some of the sets are impressive, like the library of Alexandria, where the narration takes place, or the city of Babylon, but most of the film is composed by excruciatingly slow interior scenes. Most of the three hours are spent in endless speeches about the one or two concepts the director wants to get through, like "bringing freedom to Asia" (does that sound familiar?), violating the most basic principle of film-making, the "show, don't tell" one. This film tells (well, basically one thing many times over), but doesn't show. In fact, more than what's in it, I find annoying what is missing from it. The story of Alexander the Great lends itself to a lot of spectacular scenes and to more complex meanings than this director could ever think of. Where is the episode where Alexander and his army wade for miles in full armour in the Black Sea in order to take the enemy by surprise? Why aren't we shown the battle of Hyxos (spelling?), the fastest battle of ancient history, when the Macedons defeated the persian army in a quarter of an hour from across a river, with the superior power of their bows? (By the way we don't see these bows at Gaugamela: did they lose them on the way?) Why don't we see Alexander's crowning as a pharaoh and son of Ammon in Egypt? This film, where for once the casting is actually very fitting, could have been so much more. The rest has been said by the previous commentator "tfrizzell" better than I could have ever said it.