Save two and a half hours and read a book about Alexander the Great

Rating: 2/10 (27 December 2006)

I'm a big fan of movies and will watch almost anything, from beginning to end. However, this was one of those movies that really tested my resolve. I cannot believe the "star power" involved in making this movie (Anthony Hopkins is among my favorite actors). The movie tried entirely too hard to become one of those critically acclaimed "Epic" films, and fell significantly short. I did not see the theatrical release, only the Director's Cut on DVD. Unless Oliver Stone significantly reworked the time-line of the movie for the director's cut, I can imagine that the theatrical release was just as confusing (not to mention, longer). The movie jumped backward and forward in time several times, and not in a linear fashion, making it a bit confusing to know what happened when (especially when you're dealing with a time period in the 350± BC era). There were also at least a couple of historical inaccuracies. At one point, one of Alexander's contemporaries used the British slang term "sod," and it stuck out like a sore thumb. At another point, in Babylon (Persia), a woman was sitting with a domestic Persian cat on her lap, petting it. While domesticated cats MAY have been present then and there, having a Persian cat in Babylon seemed a little too convenient and I think the film could have done without it. If you are an animal lover, there are major portions of this film you won't want to watch. While I did not stay until the end of the credits for the Humane Association disclaimer for confirmation, there were several minutes worth of horses and elephants being speared, shot with arrows, trunks being sliced off, etc. While this may be historically accurate, is it really necessary in today's modern film-making? You can get the point across without so much gore. Shame on you Oliver.