Why this is one of the worst films ever made

Rating: 1/10 (21 May 2009)

First- Oliver Stone is neither a dramatist nor an artist; he's a "commentator" who uses the film medium to voice his opinions. In that regard, if Stone's in-your-face presentation of Alexander's homosexual inclinations had not raised controversy I'm sure the director would have been extremely disappointed. When Stone makes a movie about recent historical events we can at least accept the convention. When he attempts a subject from ancient history the results are as ridiculously anachronistic as Colin Farrell's Irish accent. Second- The life of Alexander the Great is a good subject for a documentary but a poor subject for a movie. The ancient Greeks invented drama, along with many other great things, and our civilization owes them an incalculable debt. Their legendary heroes (like Odysseus and Hercules) still have the power to inspire an artist, but the people themselves were just too "different" from us. As important as Plato is, who wants to see a bio-pic about him? Or Pericles? They are culturally far more distant from us than the ancient Romans. Despite the passage of centuries, we can still understand Julius Caesar, but Alexander seems more like a force of nature than a man, and his character is unknowable to us.