A matter of priorities.

Rating: 2/10 (25 August 2005)

In filming an epic about one of undeniably greatest military leaders of all time, it would seem obvious the emphasis should be placed on what may have made him so. A certain amount of creative (or speculative) licence on the part of writer(s) or director is understandable as the former may wish to imprint themselves on the finished product, borrowing, in a matter of speaking on the subject matter's immortality. Alexander's Freudian and bi-sexual aspects in Stone's production encroach so excessively into what may have been our hero's military prowess, that the focus of the entire movie seems greatly misplaced.
Male to male sex in Greek society is a given, even more so if we are going to consider these same men far from home for extended periods of time, in strange lands etc. Leonida's 300 Spartans were 150 pairs of lovers, but once one realizes that most, if not all, Spartan soldiers spent most of their time away from home taking care of each other sexually while their wives, daughters etc. engaged almost exclusively in Lesbian sex in their absence, the sexual habits of the famous 300 loses a lot of its story value. To further illustrate, Ceasar was bisexual and many Roman soldiers resorted to homosexual activity in Gaul and other frontiers because they found it preferable to having sex with local women who, by their standards at least, "smelled bad." Concentrating too much on these sexual aspects in treating either the Battle of Thermopylae or the Gallic Wars would readily be dismissed as "prurient." Why then should Stone's effort be exempt from this accusation?
Alexander's psychological complexities, destined at best to be speculative, result as being more indicative of the filmmakers' confusion than his own. Oedipal elements and accompanying Furies are liberally inserted and reinserted visually telling us he has problem, but when our anti-hero (super-hero-whatever) expresses himself both his speech and/or the excessive background noise negate whatever deeper understanding of the problem was intended . As was probably true, Alexander did draw parallels between himself, Achilles, and Hercules-in the former case maybe going as far as occasionally wearing a lion's skin, but this was if anything the result of already having become a dominant warlike force, not a factor contributing to it. Alexander was the cavalry leader in his father's army, perfected the phalanx, subdued and united (temporarily) Greece, conquered Egypt, founded Alexandria, and later Persepolis. Apparently, these things were not very important to Stone and time will bear out the error of his priorities.
There are nine nominations listed somewhere on here in reference to this movie. Four are, at least to me, rather obscure in source, and unrelated to either acting or script . Five are for the "worst" in an equal number of categories. It easy to dismiss this movie as a major mistake without being an homophobe. All too easy.