Before there was Brokeback Mountain, there was Alexander.

Rating: 3/10 (12 January 2006)

An Oliver Stone mistake, for sure, since he co-wrote as well as directed this picture which was well-funded and contains actors ranging from at least adequate to outstanding. Stone's interpretation of Alexander's close and possibly homosexual relationship to Hephaistion, as well as his interpretation of male relationships in general at the time, seems to be one of a band of scrawny effeminate warriors who alternate their time between swordplay and soapy emotive conversations about their feelings. Perhaps the only believable male portrayal in the movie was val Kilmer's Philip. These were hard rational warriors--lost eyes, scars, large builds from a life of training, coarse behavior from a life of extremes of deprivation and excessive living, and cold calculation which allowed them to survive intrigue--Kilmer seems to be the only one who understands this. Everyone else in the movie acted like a lost teenager or flat out crybaby. But then, the actors don't write their own lines, so it is hard to blame them.
So most of the casting, nearly all of the dialog, and the interactions between the characters was all like a bad old costume drama--what about the special effects? Well, I had heard the movie was bad, but I have become accustomed to seeing badly written movies for their spectacular visuals (Harry Potter series, Star Wars series, etc.) In Alexander I was looking forward to the recreations of each of Alexander's most famous adventures along his campaign through Asia and Egypt. Don't hold your breath. Two visuals are worthwhile: one fairly well shown battle scene, and the reasonably well recreated Babylon. No Gordian knot. No siege of Tyre. No building of his Alexandrias. Much else was missing as well. No hearing the oracles in Egypt tell him he was descended from Zeus. No perspective that he was tutored by one of the most incredible minds that ever existed (other than multiple "Remember what Aristotle said" lines). No perspective on the carefully crafted and pragmatic policy of integrating Greek with Persian culture in the conquered lands, just silly tirades by Alexander about how nobody understood him. Or did I sleep through those parts? Hard to tell how much I missed between dozing, laughing, and cringing.
It is true that the persistent homosexual references are very distracting, perhaps in part because of cultural differences. Mostly, however, this is because the interactions are portrayed in a ludicrous way. To pull the modern audience into the world of Alexander would have been to treat these relationships as they were regarded at the time--unremarkable, and not to make them the centerpiece of every other scene. Macedonians and Persians did not marvel at Alexander for his man-love, nor is that his unique lasting legacy to us.
Absence of character development, corny shallow dialog, bad casting, and disappointing visual effects somehow come together to make the epic true story of Alexander seem utterly silly and uninteresting. Nice job, Stone.