A stool of epic proportions

Rating: 1/10 (22 November 2004)

I saw Alexander at a free screening last week and wanted my money back. No, more than that, I wanted the three hours of my life back. What an overlong, overblown, overbearing piece of odoriferous offal that was! The editing was apparently done at random, the pacing ponderous, the characters completely unsympathetic, the storytelling weak. Anthony Hopkins' droning narrative served only to remind us -- for three friggin' hours! -- that film is *supposed to be* a visual medium. Show us, don't tell us! The battle scenes, which should have been a strength here (Platoon was brilliant in this area), were a jumbled mess of quick cuts and shaky-cam shots of blood spurting with no sense of what strategy was being employed or how Alexander could have defeated an army six times the size of his own by employing superior tactics. The fighting never moved the story forward, and any dialogue uttered during the battles was completely lost in the sound mix. (Lest you blame the theater, know that I saw this at the Dolby Labs screening room.) Not only that, but what dialogue was comprehensible often seemed to have been spoken by refugees from Braveheart. As my DGA host and good friend MK put it, it was a "turgid, stinking pile of crap." Exactly that.