This could have been much better

Rating: 4/10 (22 November 2005)

Frequent segues badly interrupt the chronology of an already complicated story. The military action is confusing, cloudy, not explained, and with poor sound which prevents the viewer from hearing what is yelled above the excessive din of battle. The story leaves out a number of events in Alexander's life which I'm surprised to see left out. Typical of modern films, the sex is exclusively heterosexual in spite of Alexander's well-known appetite for men, two of whom featured in the film: Hephaestion and Bagoas. In fairness, we do see Colin (or a double) naked, showing a bare butt and balls while getting into bed, with an implication that someone male is going to accompany him, but this is vaguely implied, and only an informed viewer would be aware that the male companion is Bagoas. It isn't necessary to excessively glorify the beauty of gay relationships, but why so significantly avoid them in one of history's greatest personages who was undeniably gay? I further have to wonder why key characters were played by actors who had to dye their hair to play the roles - are there no blonds who could have played Alexander if it was essential that he be blond? Farrell certainly looked hot, but blond hair with black eyebrows has always looked a little bit weird to me. Even the boy who plays the young Alexander has the wrong color hair, and must have worn a wig and had his hair dyed. And why have Jonathan Rhys Meyers just standing in the background all the time? He hardly had any dialog in the film - what a waste of talent. The final analysis for me comes out of the fact that I collect films with several actors who I have a strong interest in. These include Rhys Meyers, Farrell, and Leto, but even with all three in this film, I have no plan to buy it or even make a copy of it. ALEXANDROS (imdb don't support his name in Greek) deserved something much better than this, and I found the film quite disappointing. What a waste of talent.