Great Spoiled Film

Rating: 7/10 (2 March 2016)

Truly there are two different Alexanders and Colin Farrel played both of them in one film. First one - heroic warrior in epic battle scenes and in colorful ethnic scenes. Oliver Stone made this part of film fantastically. It really works for the viewer. Second one - neurotic bisexual person from the 20th century with all complexes borrowed from Freud's theories. And it's hard to understand how both of them could live and interact in the same time. Mr. Stone was too impressed by Mary Renault's novels about Alexander (Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy). Mary Renault thought more of her own time than of Antiquity. Yes, bisexuality was normal for the Greeks but Plutarchus insisted that Alexander was shocked when somebody supposed that about him. Why we should believe Mary Renault and not Plutarchus? The sources about Alexander are interesting and intriguing so it's very sad that epic film after the battle sequences turns into Freudistic soap opera style family drama. That's why the film is great but it spoiled. One more mistake - long and looking completely unrealistically foreword and afterword by sir Anthony Hopkins as Ptolemy in the beginning and in the end of the film. Anyway - impressive battle sequences, impressive settings of Babylon and Balkh fortress, impressive work of artists and designers, really great music by Vangelis. Oliver Stone tried to show us the light and the dark side of Alexander and of Ancient Greek culture in general and idea was good. Simply it didn't work as a film.