Terrible, all around

Rating: 1/10 (26 November 2004)

Forget all the media hype you're hearing about this movie because of its gay/bisexual tones. That's not the reason this is a terrible movie.
First of all, the acting is terrible. Colin Farrell's performance is horrible. Anthony Hopkins is good, but has very little on screen time. Val Kilmer probably had the best acting, for the amount of on screen time. Angelina Jolie wasn't too bad either. But Farrell, and the rest of his supporting cast is terrible. Why are they using English, British and Irish accents? To distinguish between the people? Good grief, these actors get payed millions of dollars, they should either fake it, or all speak in the same accent.
The war scenes are pathetic. First of all, there are TWO, count em, TWO fight scenes in this movie. They are poorly shot. A shaky camera that switches between shots of people being stabbed. There is great strategy in the fights, but you never get a feel for it, with the way it's shot. The desert seen has *way* too much dust. And you rarely see 1on1 fights, its more of a *cut to Farrell on his horse* *cut to someone being stabbed* *back to Farrell*. You never get to see any real fighting. And if you watch on the overhead shots, you can tell the actors in the surrounding armies aren't really trying, and don't have any energy for the fight.
Back to the acting. There's an overly-dramatic scream every 20minutes. IT LOSES ITS MEANING. All the scenes that should be dramatic, and Farrell's speech scenes that are supposed to be inspiring all fall flat, and feel over dramatized. The movie is terrible, nevermind any historical or mythological inaccuracies. They glazed over too many details as well, just dismissed large battles. In fact, you never see any fights that involve him conquering Persia. You see him fighting against the man responsible for the King's death, and his expansion in India.
I'm going to go shove hot pokers through my eyes, and hope I can erase the memories from my brain.