Alexander the Confused

Rating: 2/10 (18 January 2005)

I've seen this movie some day's ago with my girlfriend. On walking out, I was fully ashamed that I recommended her this film; and I want rather commit suicide than watching this "epic" again.
The film clearly had too much talking, and when a battle ends, only the narrator explains what the results and the consequences of this battle were. Huh, and there are only *two* battles in a three-hour "epic" about Alexander the Great? I thought he was a conqueror, not a emotion-laden sissy. The real Alexander committed atrocities (by far bigger ones than silencing a mutiny), he burned down Persepolis, the capital of Persia - but where do we find these important events? A comparison with another "conqueror" epic, "Patton", shows what went wrong with "Alexander". I am not a great military buff, but I that's one of my favorite movies  that's why I mention it. In "Patton", it is really shown what the main character did and felt by his own actions, in Alexander, most emotional problems are *told* by a snake fanatic. Go and watch "Patton"! In "Patton", there was a logical sequence of events, but in "Alexander", it seemed to me that, from the countless battles Alexander the Great has lead, only two were selected randomly. One in the desert, the second one in the Indian forest. Huh, I wondered, why Alexander is suddenly transformed into a warlord? Suddenly there is a battle! Ho, mount the horses! I am a military leader! I thought people would grow into such a role...
Why was the Indian forest battle such a bloodfeast? I meant any experienced soldier would avoid fighting in a forest where the defender has an advantage.
One other point is that Alexander isn't shown as a real homosexual. I really *waited* for the first kiss between Alexander and Hephaistion because the newspapers rumored so much about that. How would an that (once) great Oliver Stone handle this topic, I wondered. But then, it ended in harmless hugging between Alexander and Hephaistion. What a rubbish! I hope Oliver Stone has to work off the $150'000'000 failure in a most cruel sort of slave labor...