Alexander Minus not Magna

Rating: 4/10 (16 October 2005)

I watched this film three times with three hopes. The first was that I could do some historical recounting and add to my knowledge of the Macedonian hero and his legend. The second was that I catch parts of the dialog that were hard (to my ear) to understand. The third was to give the film a chance, having been influenced by almost unanimous bad or indifferent reviews before seeing it.
As a film and man of history, Alexander would have been better served by linear story-telling as opposed to retrospectives of his youth through the narrative of his veteran general, Ptolemy (sorry, Anthony Hopkins). Alexander's youth was more gritty than Stone presented. This kid never got dirty, his hair never messed - even after wrestling matches and horse-breaking. The boy Alexander looked uncannily like Oliver Twist, and his peers at court(and Aristotle's pupils) were the same golden haired Anglos out of the Dickens classic. True, the ancient Greeks (pre-Turkish) could be quite blonde, but give them some Hellenic attributes - somehow - beyond tunics and laurel wreaths. Stone went for the idyllic and the result was cutesy.
Then you have the screenplay, which - please - with what they're paying for production - get some really seasoned writers on this - so much of the early dialog was heart-warming Disney-type jibe. There was so much excess verbiage that could have been trimmed and even if Stone did not compromise the overall length, he could have used that time elsewhere and more importantly. Likewise, the soundtrack by Vangelis did not go with this film. So much emotion was lost because of limp background music.
Val Kilmer as Phillip was well chosen as the jovial, bombastic King of Macedon and likable in the role.
When Phillip shows Alexander around an underground cave, describing the exploits of mythological heroes, I could not make out the mosaics - the camera panned to different sections of cave wall with black soot - and to what point? To have actually seen these epic figures would have had more impact on the narrative. This was interspersed with moments of lingering darkness which did nothing but give the camera a break.
Angelina Jolie was stunning and an appropriate choice for Olympias, but her accent was displaced (as were the heavy Scottish brogues) - a distraction throughout this film. English is the language of Shakespeare, but could'nt they have neutralized the regionalism? "I, Claudius" worked perfectly with an entirely English cast.
Stone leaves out Alexander's trip to Siwa (Egypt) where he is confirmed a god. Considering how Olympias went on (and on and on) about his Achilles blood line, this was crucial to the film. Visit some of his earlier battles, Arbela, etc. Show some background that way (some history) instead of this recurrent Ptolemy retrospective out of that Titans movie with Harry Hamlin (that's what this movie sometimes felt like). Having missed some of the more crucial engagements, intrigues and details of Alexander's life, it's off to Gaugamela.
My first thought was, the bird has got to go. An eagle's flight permeated the film from Gaugamela as both a symbol (without prior reference) and for cinematic perspective (a device out of Hitchcock), but cinematography can give us a bird's eye view without the bird. Then later in the film Alexander looks into the sky and wonders where the bird went, thus giving it a character role. The close-ups of a waxen Darius, the Persian king, served no purpose - there was no awe in this recurrent camera perspective. Then they kept tossing around the camera for the battle scene(s), which was brain-rattling.
The city of Babylon, the battle prize, was represented well (by computer graphics) and glorious to behold, but the harem scene (like a beauty contest) was silly. The women were too aggressive and trying really hard to be exotic. Babylon was beautiful, but I also wanted to see Pella (other than court-yards), Susa and other cities of the period.
And so on, into far Persia and India (a mistake), mutiny and madness, until Alexander returns to Babylon years later, hated and plotted against until his death.
What this film taught me about Alexander - he should have listened to his mother.