has it's moments of greatness, though surely not overall

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2004)

The final product of Oliver Stone's decades-in-the-making epic on Alexander the great had me stunned walking out of the theater. Not because I thought it was particular great or masterful, and not because I thought it was a failure either. What stunned me was how there could be a few points in the film where I thought that Stone, like Alexander in a sense, reached heights he's barely gone to before, but then in other spots he boggled my mind with how he lost me.
For example, take the second battle sequence, in which Alexander leads his weary army towards an Indian army, where Elephants stampede furiously against the troops on horses, and Alexander gets a bit of a shock (one which I won't reveal). After this shock, the rest of the battle scene is tinted, with a red glaze and form that gives the scene a complete, abrasive illusionment. I can consider this to include what is best and worst in Stone's talents as a storyteller - he creates this huge, massive sequence, using multiple angles and special effects. There is also an over-load of the kind of symbolism and melodramatic tendencies that have only popped up occasionally in past Stone films. The main focus being the significance of the bird in the sky (or King Phillip) to be used like the shaman in the Doors, only far too prominent to be easily desired. It's the kind of battle sequence I'd like to analyze shot-by-shot sometime, not necessarily because I'd like it more, but because it's the kind of sequence that you almost never see in major motion pictures.
Like Natural Born Killers (which is one of the ultimate love or hate films ever made), Stone brings his unique, art-house sensibilities to a Hollywood budget and goes wild. The story he tells jumps around in revealing the rise and fall of the Macedonian. More than showing how ferocious and intelligent he was at battle (though that and other scenes of violence take up more than a third of the whole picture), Stone opts to get into his psychology via parents Phillip and Olympia (the sexy, sometimes frightening Angelina Jolie). This is where Stone makes some interesting ground, yet also, more often than not, doesn't know how to stick to something. A lot of the scenes involving Alexander's anger and frustration with his parents probably looked better on paper than they do on screen. And it's not necessarily the actors' faults entirely- the repetitive usage of close-ups, and the sometimes horrendous musical score by Vangelis, adds to it being less engaging.
The acting, much like the direction, tips the scale to both sides by either fitting into their characters wonderfully, or not finding what is there at all and over-playing. Kilmer was impressive at playing a cretin of a father. Jolie was so-so. Leto's was one of the least impressive performances I've seen this year (I just could not see what affect Hephaistilon could have had on Alexander). Dawson and Hopkins were good, though somewhat under-used. Then there is Farrell, who for many who see this film may be what makes or breaks it for them. In most scenes, he finds the right notes and tones for his expression, the way he looks in close-ups. He does prove he can be a leading man in Hollywood. But what disappointed me was in how in some scenes he lost a grip on what he was doing with the character, and I saw less of Alexander and more of Farrell. Sometimes, I suppose, that look in his eyes would just vanish, the kind of look that has been in the major, Dionetic performances of Stones' films (such as Willem Dafore in Platoon, Woody Harrellson in NBK, and Kilmer in The Doors).
Alexander, after a first viewing, is my least favorite of Stone's pictures - much of it goes to lengths with historical exposition that might have fared better to show (three battles, even if it was a small one or in montage, may have balanced out with the other major two) than to go on and on with. It doesn't make the mistakes of this year's Troy, but it doesn't fare much better. Simply put, Alexander the film is like the man himself- an ambitious, crazed man who ended up dividing his audience. Go see it, and know you will be challenged to love, like, or despise it.