Fortune favours the bold... filmmakers

Rating: 10/10 (27 December 2004)

I went to the theater to see Alexander without having read any critiques beforehand. It is only now that I bothered to go through a bunch of reviews, most of which were so bad that blood froze in my veins.
Why did so many people hate this movie?
Alexander is an intelligent movie made for intelligent people. Those who expect straightforward answers from this movie will be disappointed. To figure out the message of this movie, you have to contribute. You have to live, fight, fear and feel with the characters. Stone makes no spoon feeding. It is only the viewer himself who can find the answers, which are there in the script and on the faces of the actors.
Why did Alexander chase the end of the world? Why was he pushing ever so hard?
One of the key moments of the movie is the Babylon balcony scene where Hephaiston and Alexander have a beautiful dialog. Hephaiston asks Alexander why he is chasing his dream to the East. Alexander's answer is: "Who knows these things?". At the same time Alexander asks his lover: "Am I weak or divine?" No straightforward reply comes from Hephaiston.
Alexander became a king at 19. He could never be himself. He was blessed and cursed with a mother who had the greatest love and passion for her son and, more importantly, for power. He was made a king way too soon. He was offered the world and had NO CHOICE but to take it. He tried his best in doing so, because he was always trained to be the best. He was the greatest king, the ruler of what was then the known world.
Yet, he was a young boy, who mourned his father and was scared. Yes scared, look at Colin's eyes, for example when he rides against the elephant in India! He didn't have a home. He didn't have love in his life, at least the kind of love that means home to a man. He was looking for a place he could call home and looking for his own self. He was a man of dreams and visions, because he had to be.
Alexander was a complex personality, this you cannot depict in black and white. If a director chooses to do so, then the result may, at best, be a good movie like Troy or King Arthur. But Stone opted for the hard way and made an unforgettable movie.
Another thing to say for Stone is that he does not pretend that he knows the full story. He does not make the mistake of wanting the impossible. He stays realistic, and makes a realistic movie. For instance, we never know why Alexander married Roxane. The script presents us with three options and we are free to choose. And we HAVE to choose. If you don't choose, you're left with confusion and you think that the script is a mess. It isn't. It's just smarter than you. And it is careful and balanced.
Stone is undoubtedly a top-class director, who wrote a smart script. He had the talent of making the best actors out of actors with potential. I never knew that Lara Croft and Batman could play!? Sorry Colin, never seen you before in anything. Colin, Angelina, Val; all of them were breath-taking. There is hard work behind their performance; both physically and mentally. Making Alexander was a bold and successful attempt.
If you let yourself be captured, the movie will love you and will give you so much more you ever thought a movie could. Then, and only then, will Alexander be a movie that stays with you for a long time after you've seen it. The filmmakers have kept their side of the bargain. The rest is up to you; and believe me, it is quite an easy and enjoyable task.