A Second Viewing Doubles My Original Rating

Rating: 2/10 (10 February 2014)

I wrote a review for this film 10 years ago when I first saw it. It wasn't a good review, it was childish, petty, and filled with self- righteousness. What can I say, I was young, was looking forward to the movie, and had just had my spirit crushed. I acknowledge the follies of my youth, so when I saw that the movie was going to be on HBO I decided to give it another look.
To start, I should say that I'm fascinated by the story of Alexander the Great - I know the history and the legends. That might bias me simply because it's a huge and wonderful narrative from which to draw and make a film. It's also one of the main reasons I still hate this film. I couldn't even make it all the through the second viewing.
Let's back away from that for the moment. There's some good historical stuff in it. I like that Alexander's outfit is detailed on the Pompeii mosaic, that soldiers appear to be wearing linothorax, and the imagination that went into the battle scenes and the portrayal of the Persian empire with all its ethnicities. At the same time, some things were just ridiculous and distracting, but enough reviewers have already gone through those.
My real problem is that Oliver Stone doesn't really tell any story and actually seems completely schizophrenic given a wealth of material. It starts out with Alexander's troubled relationship with his father and mother yet this seems to completely disappear by the second half of the film. This pattern repeats with various other narratives. Is it a love story with Hephaestion? Is it a story of curiosity and adventure? Is it a story of conquest? Is it a story of Alexander questioning his mortality? Alexander as philosopher? Alexander as Achilles? The film briefly goes in each of these directions, only to be jerked back in the next couple scenes. The flashbacks don't serve to inform the audience of Alexander's character, they muddle it, and as far as I can tell are primarily used to simplify a narrative taking place over 20 years.
So here's the crux. If this was an original story it might be able to come off as some artsy epic with its own meaning. Unfortunately it's not. The story of Alexander already has meaning and therefore this Alexander comes off as completely underwhelming and much less interesting than nearly any other telling. Watch the BBC's "In the Footsteps of Alexander," a documentary that follows a historian along Alexander's route. Without any reenactments a character is brought to life, his motives explored, and his legacy displayed 2250 years after his death.