Strenuous and generally difficult to stay alert to, this opus on Alexander the Great is anything but its eponymous lead's nickname.

Rating: 4/10 (20 December 2011)

Like Costner's lead in 1991's JFK; Barry Champlain from the earlier Talk Radio and then Pacino's lead character further back in 1983's Scarface (whose screen writing credit is the important thing here) Oliver Stone's 2004, centuries-ago set Hollywood romp Alexander covers a male lead with an insatiable desire to conquer; a thirst to break through the boundaries which govern the 'rules' of the established norm so as to make a name for himself against extraordinary odds. They are Stone movies about fiercely competitive, and often fiercely temperamental, people capable of quite extraordinary things within a specific field. Costner wanted to un-Earth the truth about a killing; Champlain took on a sordid, invincible God-like figure whom constantly pushed the envelope when his radio show went national, and Pacino's Tony Montanna decided to run the Miami narcotics trade single handedly. Here, Alexander's eponymous lead, Colin Farrell's Alexander the Great, of around 350 B.C, tries to take on and rule the world – you can't blame a guy for trying'.
The difference between Alexander and what preceded Alexander is that Stone goes on to make a complete hash of it. Here is another Oliver Stone film about a man who just doesn't know when to call it a day; a film driven by man who carries on a hunger for progression long after most guys would've called it a day already – we arrive at the project expecting rather a lot, but come away on this occasion with a frightening sense of numbness and disappointment. Stone has never been the sort of person to necessarily produce "small" films, but his Alexander here is what 1984's Dune was to David Lynch; a big and bombastic exercise in stunning vistas, emphasis on genre convention and stars in funny outfits doing its best to try and get across persistent senses of scale. It fails miserably.
The first we see of Alexander is that of a stone model of his head, and a large bird of prey swooping down delicately dissolving into the close up of the would-be statue - the correlation between our titular lead and some sort of predator, some sort of brilliant beast feared in certain circles is alluded to before later confirmed when an edit placing a close up of his eyes with that of another bird of prey's occurs. The film is narrated to us by a man whom stood beside Alexander through his battles, an elderly and bedraggled Ptolemy, who's played by Anthony Hopkins, speaking as warmly as he can about the tribulations and twists of Alexander's life all those decades ago. As a youngster, Alexander lives with a brute of a father, but he's not around for long, as well as his mother, Olympias (Jolie). Jolie plays Olympias as a woman who is all charm; Russian accents and is often clad-in-snake. Alexander sits, with a bunch of other kids his age of whom are speaking in English but with an Irish twang in spite of the fact the whole thing ought be in Greek, or whatever, anyway, and he listens to the great philosophers of the era speak of how the mystery shrouded and dangerous "East" are death traps in-waiting for all those whom go anywhere near it. Naturally, Alexander becomes someone gunning to invade it.
Along the way to growing up, he will learn to tame horses; how to take control of situations; become a swordsman and fall in love - all the necessary things, you might say, to instill that he is a warrior in the making. Stone will pound us into the ground during the mid-section of this three hour chore with the repetitive mention of the names of people and places on top of a ton of historical exposition. At the beginning, Hopkins speaks of how Alexander was able to instill great belief and how one was proud to be alongside him; not long into one campaign, in which the land of Persia is conquered despite the fact the one fight we see involving Farrell's forces has them beaten easily, what Hopkins said is totally contradicted when clear distrust and anger at Alexander's leadership within the army rear up.
There is room for our Alex to fall in love, but it will essentially be to one or two of his friends of the male variety more than anyone. In spite of this, Alexander will marry Rosario Dawson's Roxanne. The funniest scene of the film occurs when she accuses him of homosexuality and he attempts to make love to her in reaction, something that is quelled when Dawson turns it into a session of brief face slapping and power-play on the bed involving a knife to her husband's throat. This grip of accusation Roxanne has on him, although drenched in truths, sees Alexander unable to face up to them and can only be nullified when a trinket in the style of a sadomasochistic restraint is removed from one of the two persons so that heterosexual bonding may play out away from the vice like 'hold' of knowing homosexual ties both parties identify exist. A lot is spoken about Wolfgang Peterson's Troy, which came out at around the same time, in regards to Alexander; I liked Troy more – a film which got on with things and at least told a story whilst maintaining a fair amount of this sense of conflict as two sides warred. Alexander is an episodic, one-note and melodramatic lesson in history for anybody unfortunate enough to be roped into it.