Not Great, but worth seeing

Rating: Null/10 (1 August 2005)

Let's go straight to the point: "Alexander" is an uneven epic, but is not that bad as Oliver Stone's haters insist on claiming.
PROS: Oliver Stone made the film he wanted, his personal view on Alexander. He wasn't afraid on including homoerotic scenes, and didn't make lots of battle scenes to entrance a larger audience. For these reasons, I found "Alexander" much more interesting than the fairly entertaining, but mythologically shallow "Troy", for instance.
CONS: The performances are disappointing: I expected more from Colin Farrell as Alexander; he is not bad, but leaves more to be desired, as well as Val Kilmer (Philip). Angelina Jolie sucks as Olympias (her accent, anyone?), and Rosario Dawson (Roxane) is not much better; Jared Leto (Hephaistion) is just 'OK'. Anthony Hopkins (Old Ptolemy), is the best (which comes as no surprise), but he isn't on show for too long. Some scenes are over the top or excessively flamboyant; some dialogues are quite poor. Vangelis' score is inopportune; Gabriel Yared, Hans Zimmer or Howard Shore would have been better, I guess.
Anyway, this is a film to be seen for what it is, not for what it could have been.
My vote: 6.5 out of 10.