Even Stone knew it was bad

Rating: 1/10 (7 August 2005)

I'm here to say that I didn't care if Alexander depicted gayness or not. I know enough of history to know that of the Greek culture. I'm here to say the movie was bad. Even Stone knew it as he edited out scenes for the director's cut. The narrative rambles and jumps around constantly, all the characters stay at arms length, the battle scenes are very few and poorly done, and Alexander comes off as a tyrant conquering the poor ignorant savages for their own good while caring nothing of the lives of his men. His claim to have shared everything with his men comes off cold and his attempts to bolster his men's courage come off as patronizing. It may be just my personal dislike that the characters are all either boring or stiff, but the cut of the movie is horrid. From Alexander's youth to his teens, to the last battle with Darius (for all intents and purposes) then when you think another gorilla war will take the movie Darius is found dead. True to history, yes, dramatic? no! Stone seems to be jumping around trying to cover this and that with no idea how to edit down the movie to a dramatic core. Even when conspiracies are unmasked it rushes ahead to their execution. Every time the scene changes I wonder where we are off too. The past? present? future? Fans of this film need to stop blaming the right wingers for some anti-gay conspiracy. It's just a bad movie from a guy who can often cross the line between brilliant and awful.