Braveheart Goes East

Rating: 5/10 (10 January 2005)

Most people who go to see 'Alexander' are doing so to see if it is really as bad as all the critics have made out. Well- it isn't quite as bad. Certainly the cast all overact and the script is poor but 'Alexander is basically just an old-fashioned sword-and-sandals epic and these have always been standard elements in this type of film. Colin Farrell does his best but is seriously miscast in the role of the eponymous hero. The entire Macedonian army speak with some variation of an Irish or Scottish accent (although why this should be any more unacceptable than them all speaking with American accents, I'm not really sure). Despite the thousands of miles travelled over many years, you never really get the feeling of space and time that Alexander's journey should convey. The film feels quite studio-bound in the main and it is left to computer graphics and the obligatory thunderous Vangelis soundtrack to create the illusion of a vast audio-visual experience. However we should be grateful at least that Oliver Stone has made a genuine attempt to tell a real story based on actual events from Ancient History.Although the ending is a long time coming, I actually found it quite moving