Too maligned

Rating: 7/10 (6 December 2004)

I didn't think this was a bad movie. The problem that many people seem to have with it is, basically, that there was more history than entertainment in it. It was one director's honest, realistic and no-holds-barred interpretation of the life of a great figure from history, warts and all. Oliver Stone deserves kudos for this achievement, though I'll also say that the movie had a few problems.
Most people - incl. myself, actually - had undoubtedly expected something more entertaining and action-filled. There certainly was action in it, but the action played second fiddle to the up-close-and-personal psycho-analysis of Alexander. We saw him as a very troubled figure. Not as much of a conquering hero, nor a character we could particularly care about. He had an interesting idealistic vision of the great cross-cultural civilization he would build, but we never really get into his mind about this. Instead, we see him worriedly trying to deal with a sea of troubles that beset him at every turn, mostly in the form of his Macedonian soldiers who don't agree with his conquering tendencies. This is all good and well, and a very valid and interesting take on what actually happened, but it fills too much in the movie, and takes away from the portrayal of Alexander the person; it undermines our chance to get a good understanding of the attractive sides of his ideas and visions. Possibly, Oliver Stone doesn't think Alexander's visions were that attractive, and possibly he's right. But Alexander is such an important, seminal and thoroughly adventurous historical figure that the viewer expects to see him as a confident, almost heroic, conquering pioneer. It's no fun to have him psychologically deconstructed. We have academic papers for that. The populace at large needs affirmation of Alexander the Great's actual greatness. This movie did not provide that. It was too serious; too ambitious. It kind of forgot that it was a big-budget Hollywood caper. But who knows, maybe sober posterity will look more favorably at what it was trying to do.
The homosexual aspect didn't bother me that much, but then, I'm a tolerant person. The average movie goer, it seems, is not. Because clearly a lot of the bad rap this movie's gotten stems from people not being able to stomach the whole gay thing. Which really wasn't anything to make such a big fuss about. Before I saw the movie, I'd heard that there would be "offensive" homo-erotic scenes in it. There wasn't. Sure there were a few scenes emphasizing the orientation and such (and one where Alexander kissed a male member of the Babylonian king's harem), but there wasn't any unsettling gay sex scenes, and what overtly sexualized "gayness" there was, was quite tastefully done. (Of course, the boy who was raped at a party by some soldiers was an exception, but that was shown for the sake of realism.) One thing I thought was overdone, though, were the several shots of the male harem member (whom Alexander brought along on much of his journey of conquest) which had him looking down, bowing away, etc., emphasizing (particularly in the minds of the audience) that his presence was shameful. This shouldn't have been done, but it's a minor thing.
Probably my biggest point of criticism is about the accents. I don't mind some of the actors using their own accents (like Farrell), but I mind some of the actors being given clearly artificial "barbaric" accents. This was not very consistently done, and esp. in Rosario Dawson's case it was very grating. And that's really too bad, because it ruined the whole atmosphere of many scenes.
Overall, however, I thought the movie was pretty good - certainly better than Troy -, and there were many spectacular scenes of Babylon and great battles, which I really enjoyed watching. I would have been happier, however, with a movie that had emphasized adventure and entertainment a little more.
7 out of 10.