Horrible History

Rating: 2/10 (26 November 2004)

To start off with I do not consider myself one of those individuals who judges a film based solely on its historical correctness or closeness to the book/original, etc, but this movie goes WAY beyond my tolerance limit.
I understand they have to cut out and edit some parts of the history to fit it into a 3 hour movie, and I can tolerate some historical editing to make the movie run a little better but common Mr. Stone, if this movie was supposed to have been a HISTORY of Alexander, maybe you should start reading some different history books because the almost the entire history presented in this movie is WRONG, and for the record I am not talking about his relationship with Hephaistion.
To start with, Alexander won the battle of Gaugemela more or less before it even started. It was the SECOND time the Alexander and Darius had fought and while Alexander was outnumbered 100,000 to 40,000 the majority of the Persion army were green untrained troops who where facing what was quite possibly the best trained army in the world, NOT a bunch of military trained sheep herders as they are depicted in the movie, these guys where the BEST of the BEST. Alexander charged down a hill onto the plain of Gaugemela and the majority of the Persion army ran before even fighting.
The battle of Issus, quite possible one of the most pivotal engagements in History was totally cut out. In there first meeting Darius finally decided to engage Alexander with a force of roughly the same size by trapping him between a cliff and the sea. Alexander had his soldiers physically turn themselves around and lead his cavalry along the tide line and annihilated the Persion forces which Alexander to ramain unchecked while he slowly liberated Asia minor and Egypt from Persian Control.
And lastly on the battles. Alexander NEVER crossed the Indus river but consented to his soldiers demand to go back. The battle that is depicted on the other side is semi-accurate. At a subsidiary of the Indus he faced off against an Indian army that did have Elephants and in a brilliant bit of planned tactics Alexander won the engagement. It was his bloodiest battle but it wasn't that bloody and it was a VERY decisive victory for Alexander, and he survived the engagement unhurt.
Now onto Alexander's character. Colin Farell was not a wise choice as Alexander as there is something about his eyes that makes him look like he is either scared or about to cry. To things states that Alexander was very rarely if ever in. Every scene in this move feature Alexander either crying or on the point of tears, or pleading with someone, or looking shocked or looking unsure of himself . Alexander was very bold and incredibly gutsy individual, he would not have be sobbing when he made is legendary rebuke of his father about being to drunk to lead the men into Persia and he would have likely been the one to put his father's crown on his head after his murder. He would not have been unsure of himself in battle, he was to worlds greatest general and would not have been that indecisive. Alexander reputedly had very piercing eyes and such a potent aura that no one question him to his face, yet all his generals are constantly questioning him in this movie. Whether or not he was bisexual, i do not know, so the only thing I have to say about that is either portray it completely or ignore it, don't pussy foot around with it for 3 hours.
Minor notes: Phillip did trust Alexander for the most part and recognized his talents, making him commander of his cavalry at age 16, they only didn't get along for a short time after that argument until philips death, a couple months at most. The wars of the successors didn't begin until nearly 20 yrs after Alexanders death when his son died. There would have been little/no complaining about Alexander giving the land back to the Indian kings as that is exactly what he did with everyone he conquered, gave the land back with the promise of tribute and military aid. Those battle scenes, while realistic to any real battle situation where a little to confusing for this movie. Christopher Plummer and Brian Blessed, to great actors are totally wasted in their 3 minute parts, if you are going to hire talent like that either really use them or don't use them at all. I like Anthony Hopkins and thought he did a good job trying to give this movie some credibility.
On the Whole 1/5 stars, PATHETIC