Very average and too long

Rating: 4/10 (5 January 2005)

Alexander the Great was a leader of men, and a great conqueror of nations. In his short life, he conquered around 90% of the then known world, creating the largest empire known. From the Persian's and Babylon, to the gates of India, he seemed unstoppable in his conquest. This film focuses mainly on the epic campaign, but with some history about the man himself, and those around him.
Many harsh words have been spoken about this film, with critics deriding it a truly terrible film. This is not really fair, as there is a good film here, just it is buried amongst some of the worst film-making decisions ever. Let's start with the good points.
The cast are all really passionate in their roles. Farrell, an unlikely choice for the lead, surprises by being powerful, emotional, and brutal to an amazing degree. The support cast around him are mostly brilliant (the exception I will get to in a bit). Stone directs with a wonderful vision, capturing the beauty of the settings, and the bloodiness of battle, although the occasional "wobbly camera" does irritate. The 'swooping eagle' view of the battlefield in particular is breathtaking. The general story is strong, and engrossing to a degree.
Where the film suffers are in some ropey factors such as the accents, the extrapolation of plot, and the truly dull voice-over. Accents first, with Farrell in the lead role, for some strange reason the decision was made that, as he is Irish, everyone around him should be Irish too! Why this occurred I have no idea, but you are left with a load of terrible accents ruining some strong lines (and turning some comical). None are worse than Kilmer, the weakest link in the acting on screen. A worse accent hasn't been heard since Heath Ledger in Ned Kelly! I don't' recall this being done for films with Sean Connery in (an actor notorious for being Scottish no matter the role). The rest of the Red October crew didn't try to be from Edinburgh. By making everyone Irish, Stone has distanced the film from the 'historical accuracy' he claims he wanted to depict. It looks even worse when you see that no-one seemed to tell Angelina Jolie about the idea, so she tries desperately to put on a Macedonian accent.
The plot seems insistent on hammering home some factors. One example is Alexander's love for his best friend, Hephaistion. Every 10 minutes we are reminded of their undying love by a minute or two of gazing. After the first few times, you generally get the point and the later interruptions (which get longer still) just break up the rest of the film. Overall there must be around 30 minutes of film wasted in this manner. With the Anthony Hopkins voice-over telling the story, it is surprising I managed to stay awake! The first ten minutes consisted of him droning on about something or otherÂ…sorry I lost interest as he really tell the tale in the dullest, most boring way imaginable! Only once the film itself kicked in did I spark up and take note. Every now and again, Hopkins would waffle on to tell us what we missed, and the mind would wander whilst he did so.
The biggest flaw in this film, however, is the decision to suddenly skip the story from his exile to him being King. I thought I had fallen asleep and missed a huge chunk of plot, and for 90 minutes was wondering what happened to his father, what had I missed, when did he come home, and why is he fighting everyone! Then, 40 minutes from the end the missing scene is shown as a flashback. It served the film no purpose placing it late in the film, and in fact served to the detriment of the end result.
As I said, there is a good film in here somewhere. I reckon around 1 hour 45 mins of good film. It is just that it is muddled in with 1 hour 15 mins of bad. Seems like a decent ratio, but you need to ask yourself if you really want to spend 3 hours watching an average film?