misguided attempt at greatness

Rating: Null/10 (30 November 2004)

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER Note before I start this review: I went to see Troy thinking that it was gonna be really bad and campy, but I was pleasantly surprised... I came into this movie thinking I was going to be pleasantly surprised also...but I wasn't--and to those who thought that this movie was good and those who don't like it are the masses who want simple plot lines, get over yourself (you probably liked Lost in Translation (which, btw, also tried too hard))
OK, comment on the acting, I actually didn't realize Val Kilmer was in this film, he did an outstanding job :-) The rest of the actors, well, they weren't so good. I could tell that they were taking their jobs seriously, but I never believed for one second that they believed in a single word they were saying. They were trying too hard, their dialogue didn't come natural, I could feel them acting
The battle scenes were good, chaotic and hectic, just like a real battle. However, this took up a minor portion of the movie, if they were to make this an action flick, I would so dig it. An artsy friend said that they were attempting to re-create some paintings of Alexander in battle, and upon reflection, I could see that, but I do have some problems with the battle scenes: 1. In trying to re-create the painting scene, they focused too much on a character to the point of hilarity, for example, in the first battle scene, the director showed an intense frontal shot of the enemy, but held on so long that it got funny 2. What is up with showing the parallel between soldiers' legs and the camels legs, that was plain funny 3. Um, a horse vs elephant in the Hindustani battle scene, you don't look heroic bud, you look kinda stupid, it takes away from Alex's greatness
Great set designs, great re-creation of the Gates of Babylon
That was about all the good things I can say about the film, here's where it goes wrong
1. We never see why Alexander is Great. Anthony Hopkins builds him up, so I think we'll see either a great character study or a great war epic, but instead, there's no pay-off. Great job as an old cook tho
2. Alexander looks like a wimp. We see only two battle scenes really, then the rest is, well, i'll get to that later. It looks like Alexander miraculously wins battles, and the moment he loses one, he wimps out and runs home. OK, yea, it was 10 years and time to go home, but despite its length, we don't feel the amount of time that has passed in the film
3. They spend time going through childhood and explaining the Greek myths, but they didn't use it as effectively as they could have, it's about half an hour of build up to explain one line in the movie, not to mention that the horse scene was dragged out and didn't reveal as much about Alexander as it could have, it felt like a horse whisperer rip-off
4. THE GAYNESS--OK, this is where I may give the actors more credit, because by the looks they were shooting each other, I spent most of the time going, just F*CK HIM ALREADY!! There were a lot of cop out hugs, and I know that they didn't want to make a big deal out of Alex being bi, but by requiring the actors to shoot those looks to each other, then spend most of the dialogue and movie ignoring that they even made those looks, gets really distracting. Acknowledge with a PASSIONATE kiss and move on.
5. The attempt at greatness gone awry: I saw in a recent interview that Stone wanted to have three relationships: parents, Heph, and his wife. Like I said, Kilmer was great, but I never believed Jolie as the mom, I didn't get the sense of desperateness for self/concern for Alex. The Hep relationship I guess was supposed to be Platonic, but all the looks just made me angry. (There's also the obliviousness of when Heph is dying because it make Alex look stupid) The wife didn't seem to have a relationship with Alex, just a baby-making machine. I thought that's how it was supposed to be after watching the movie, but seeing the interview, I now criticize this because the homo-eroticism dwarfs this. Other attempts at greatness are the wanna be great speeches that get cut off by the director, the love of his people that we don't see, the non-depiction of how Alexander is the Great Pharoh and founder of many cities.
Those are the specifics about why I didn't like the movie, but generally, the film tries really, really hard to be good, but that much effort is distracting. It tried to show everything at once, but merely glances over everything.