Alexander the Minor

Rating: 4/10 (22 November 2008)

For Oliver Stone to take on a project such as this took ambition that Alexander III himself would have recognised, but as with A.T.G.'s rampage thru the East it all ends in failed disillusionment.
Things that worked: Angelina J. as Olympias; Stretch as Cleitus; Kilmer as Philip II (despite the handicap of questionable make up); the central battle sequence at Guagamela with A.T.G. leading the cavalry back to the centre to go for old Darius himself, the death of Cleitus.
(This is a short list for a film seeking to punch as big as this).
(A few) things that didn't:
Poorly designed sets - where is the magnificence & oriental opulence of the royal palaces of Babylon? Why is Aristotle teaching the royal cubs sitting amidst a stack of 1/2 broken classical Greek columns (they may be broken today but 2,300 years ago they'd just been put up)?
Cheap looking costumes - everyone in Macedon walks around wearing robes that look like an advert for a soap detergent they are so dazzlingly white, and towards the film's end the costumes increasingly begin to resemble the outfits worn by English "glam rock" bands in the 1970's, complete with eye-liner? Who thought that this was a good look for the film's subject?
Farrell, good in the occasional scene (death of Cleitus, confrontation with Olympias after his father's murder) but lacking the stature as a player for the main role here, also lacks the classically proportioned good looks that are needed and the lack of a bright colour in the eyes for the close ups is a visual hindrance. Ollie Stone's penchant for young wild cards paid off with Charlie Sheen in the 80's, but not this time.
The all Irish casting for the Macedonians (apart from Stretch). Daring and interesting, but has the effect of making them at moments resemble a crowd of excited hobbits from ... well, another recent film.
Sub-standard casting aside from the main role. Apart from Cleitus, where are the Macedonian lions who stamped themselves over the last chapter of the book of the glory of Greece: Hephaestion (a disaster by Leto, see his bronze in the Prado in Madrid for the real man), Ptolemy (a blank with a questionable hair style - that goes for both "old" & "young"), the rest of the Diadochi barely put in an appearance. Where's the swagger and the cut and dash and danger of this young Macedonian aristocratic elite pack taking on the world and knowing that no one that they're facing can compete with them? Parmenion lacking the gravitas that the old man has from the echo of him in the histories, Chris Plummer and Hopkins wasted, Plummer thrown away merely on a context setting historical lecture, and A.H., wearing another of those glow white togas, trapped in an awful set consisting of plastic classical fake marble and pot plants, having to read out a script of contextual history tie ups to explain loose ends that could have been written as a part of a school project.
A poor script, 2nd rate writing mangling an inherently dramatic story by a mixture of poor selection of events left in & out, and a lack of a writer's vision as to a clear and effective narrative theme; A.T.G. is reduced half way thru to being Ollie Stone's ideal of a 1/2 cut J.F.K. of the classical period with musings of how what he's doing is for the freedom of the world (something that might raise an eyebrow or 2 amidst the now dust of the denizens of Tyre & Gaza (332 BC) and the Greeks who opposed Alexander at Granicus (334 BC).
A Director "out of his knowledge". Where are the sweeping vistas and panoramas of the passage from Europa, thru Asia Minor and the husk of the fallen might of Egypt, on into the arid airy beauty of Persia and then beyond to the exotic mystery of the lushness of the sub-continent? Where is the magnificence of the entry to Babylon with its terrified and yet also indifferent mass of citizenry watching on as these Europeans walk into their capital upending everything that these people known as an established order for more than a millennium. Where is Persepolis in its breath defying blue white pureness, and its great ending in answer to Xerxes? Ollie Stone made his reputation with small up close & personal films such as "Wall Street" and "J.F.K." examining elements of the underbelly of W.A.S.P. Amerika, and at that he's 2nd to none, but with "Alexander" he took a deep breath and boldly stepped out of his comfort zone ... and thereby revealed his limitations.
He "over-reached", not unlike a young fellow from who came out of Pella a long time ago.