Somehow, "tedious" isn't quite harsh enough

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 2004)

"In you lives the light of this world. Your companions will long be shadows in the underworld, when you will be the one, forever young, forever inspiring - never will there be an Alexander like you - Alexander the Great." Well, those are the words of Olympias, Alexander's mother (Jolie), but if this movie is any judge, then he should've been called Alexander the Boring. Or Alexander the Tedious. Perhaps Alexander the Way Too Talkative? You get the idea.
Folks, this movie is 3 hours long, and it makes sure you know it. It's been a while since I've wanted a movie to end so badly. I lost interest at the hour and a half mark and was near tears when I thought about how it was only halfway over. Still, I trudged forward, thinking the action would pick up a bit. "There are bound to be a few more fight scenes coming up," I figured. Should've used the calculator on this one because I figured wrong.
Alexander conquered 90% of the known world, right? Well, I guess I just assumed that meant the movie would explore why he was such a great leader and warrior. Silly me. I wish I'd been warned that instead, this movie is about all the boring conversations he apparently had between battles.
There are only two battle scenes (the Battle of Gaugamela and the Battle of India). TWO! Many historians feel Alexander possessed the greatest military mind of all time, so two small battle scenes is unforgivable. The Battle of India was pretty cool with the armored elephants, but other than that things were really too fast and chaotic to get a grasp of what was going on. The bird's eye view was pretty cool though, and that's about the best I can say regarding the movie. Pretty sad, really.
What makes the movie so bad? Let's examine just a few details.
* The dialogue is embarrassingly bad at times. Anthony Hopkins actually has to use a line in which he states that Alexander never lost a battle except to Hephaistion's thighs. Or something like that. It's a reference to them wrestling as teenagers, but it's horribly awkward dialogue. Absolutely laughable.
* I don't care how realistic it is, but teenage boys wrestling in big diapers look ridiculous. The fact that we can see Alexander's big diaper under his army skirt is even worse.
* What is up with Alexander's hair? He has bad hair in every stage of life. It looks extremely fake, especially the bad dye job. The worst was the mullet. For a minute there I thought I was watching David Spade as Joe Dirt.
* A lot of controversy has surrounded the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion (Leto). I don't know if Alexander was actually bisexual, so I'm not really gonna speculate. I simply haven't researched the subject enough to know. But everybody involved with the movie claims that the relationship isn't really meant to be looked at in a sexual manner. Could've fooled me. The sappy dialogue between the two is painfully embarrassing, as evidenced by the theater audience's laughter. They hug, pledge their devotion to each other, use mock poetic language, etc. When Hephaistion told Alexander that he was the sun to him and that he was jealous of losing him to the world, all while undressing him with his eyes, I started to wonder what gay soap opera I had accidentally stumbled upon. Sorry, but that's not exactly what I want to see in what is supposed to be an epic war movie.
* Oliver Stone somehow failed at character development, despite the fact that he had three hours to work with. It would've been nice to know what exactly drove and inspired the characters. For example, Alexander sees Roxane (Rosario Dawson) dance and then the next thing you know they're getting married. Why did he choose her of all the women dancing? I don't know, nor will you after watching the movie.
* The love scene between Colin Farrell and Rosario Dawson is very strange. I kept expecting some wonka wonka porn music to start playing. When Farrell let out a little cat-like growl I shook my head and started to look around the theater for the exits.
* File "Transvestite-Looking Men Belly Dancing For an Extended Period of Time" under "Scenes I Hope to Never See Again in Life." Then to make it worse, Farrell kissed the guy afterwards. Sigh. Three hours, folks. Three hours I'll *never* get back. I'm WARNING you.
I could on, talking about the over-the-top acting, the messy editing, the lack of story cohesion, etc., but I've wasted enough of my time on this movie.
The biggest failure of Alexander is that after the credits rolled, I was left with the question, "What exactly was the point of the movie?" What exactly was Stone trying to accomplish? The subject is Alexander the Great, so why, after three hours, does Stone not give us any real insight into his military mind?
Why was Alexander so great? Stone just doesn't tell us. The movie gave me no reason to root for the guy. Anthony Hopkins' narration tells us his accomplishments, but the movie itself doesn't really show us what made him such a great conqueror.
Stone claims to have a great awe and respect for Alexander. If this is true, then why does he leave us with the impression that Alexander was a boring whiner? Why are we left scratching our heads in amazement that Alexander conquered the world?
I would say "nice try," but I can't even give Mr. Stone that much credit. I doubt even Alexander himself could sit through this.
Rating: 2 (out of 5)