so so so bad!

Rating: 1/10 (14 March 2012)

To be candid, after having watched Alexander, I had to run and watch Platoon again - one of my all-time favorites - to restore my respect to Mr.Stone. What was that?!! I'm trying hard to keep my negative view reasonably negative, but, afraid, nothing seems too critical when talking of THIS Alexander.
Analysis of the numerous factual inaccuracies may take hours. Well, OK, if Mr Stone indeed aimed to turn the Alexander's ages into a light-weight entertainment for us - that's his right. But there are details I'd expected he'd really pay attention to, at least for sake of perfectionism. Unfortunately they've been completely disregarded.
1.You don't need to be a scholar to regard Alexander as one of the most genius personalities in the mankind's history - as a leader, general, king, politician, or diplomat. Instead, we saw a fragile, quasi-incestuous, bisexual chap, hysterical, shedding tears left and right, and occasionally stating pseudo-philosophic and futuristic phrases about democracy, liberalism, equality and freedom - something that could never be in the agenda of an ambitious conqueror of the ancient times. What, are we being thus assured that the good guys 2400 years ago had the same values as we have today?
2. Macedonia was not the same as Greece, nor was it a province of Greece. In fact, Greece was invaded, knelt and silenced by the Macedons prior to the campaign against Persia. Thus, no way Alexander would be inspirng his men before the decisive battle with slogans "and to the glory of Greece!". Of the same nature - the Latin word 'empire' came into existence centuries after Alexander. Was Persia purportedly called Empire to remind us that imperialists are villains in the movie?
3. One of the main features of Alexander was his superhuman aura, intellectual power,dominance, that literally suppressed even his closest surrounding. So,why do we see Alexander's relationships with his subjects the way more appropriate to the gang of cowboys chanting "he's a jolly good fellow!" to their buddy? Was it to make us think of him that he's just "one of us", only a bit more successful?
4. Who wouldn't know that women of those times were grown in an environment of speechless respect and even fear to the men as such, let alone their own husbands. Especially among the ancient Asian peoples. And it was simply ridiculous to see that Alexander's newly wed wife Roxana,who was only 15 then, is furiously slapping the face of her semi-divine husband, as if she'd been professionally practicing S/M in her tiny village before Alexander's arrival... What was that for?
5. During the main battle scene, when Parmenion dispatches his son Philotas to ask Alexander for help, with the words "and if he wouldn't listen - kill him for the treason!". Hey,people, king and treason? How can this possibly be? No comments...
Put together, this is not a movie about the truly great leader and his circle of wise and brave courtiers, who actually launched the whole new twist in Europe's, Asia's and Africa's histories, introduced Hellenistic culture, and shaped the future of many powerful kingdoms for centuries ahead. Instead, we see the story of a band of poorly equipped men, with remarkable homo and bi-sexual inclinations, headed to somewhere in search of something and fighting with somebody.
In result - we got cheap unrealistic show instead of potentially epic historical movie. My subjective recommendation - watch, if there's nothing to see elsewhere.