An Epic Hubris

Rating: 1/10 (7 August 2005)

Viewers who expect an epic display of world conquest will be extremely disappointed in Oliver Stone's Alexander, which includes exactly two fairly brief battle sequences in its three hour running time. The film is not about conquest; it is an attempt to create a character study of one of history's most self-contradictory and enigmatic figures.
The emphasis, however, should be on the word "attempt." Alexander fails in three basic ways: in its cast, in its refusal to meet certain character issues head-on, and in a directorial decision that easily ranks among the most serious misfires in recent memory.
Alexander the Great was a charismatic, self-contradictory, and enigmatic leader who led and inspired the largest army the world had seen up to that point. He was a battle-tested killing machine by age sixteen, King of Macedonia by twenty, conqueror of the known world by thirtyand above all one of the great military geniuses of his or any other age. Colin Farrell plays the character as a weak-minded, emotionally distraught entity, going through the entire film with a series of facial expressions that would lead to believe he is desperate need of a dose of salts. It is completely impossible to accept him in the role.
Although Val Kilmer and Angelina Jolie give acceptable if not particularly memorable performances as King Philip and Queen Olympias, the remaining performances are equally impossible. Jared Leto's Hephaistion looks for all the world like a Malibu hooker afflicted by an eyeliner addiction; it is impossible to perceive him as Alexander's military whip. Franciso Bosch's Bagoas could be an ancient-world version of Cher after a particularly thick night, albeit with better cleavage. As for Queen Roxane, history notes that she was an unattractive minor tribal princess that Alexander found annoying but whom he married in order to secure military aid from her father. The role, however, is considerably revised, and while Rosario Dawson gives it all she has the part plays like something out of bondage skin flick.
During the film's theatrical release some audiences complained that Alexander was portrayed as a homosexual. Unfortunately, you cannot offer a psychological portrait of Alexander without indicating his general indifference to women and putting him in bed with at least two men: the general Hepaistion and the eunuch and sex slave Bagoas. That is who Alexander was; that was what the ancient world was like. But instead of meeting this issue head-on, the film attempts to "indicate" the relationships through a series of longing gazes, the occasional caress, and some of the most embarrassingly bad dialogue ever written for the screen. The resulting relationships read like something off a television soap opera that has been canceled halfway into the first season.
For the sexually insecure, there is a DVD issue that deletes some eight minutes of this footage; although I went with the unedited version, and although the scenes in question are very badly done, I cannot imagine the deletion of these largely cringe-inducing scenes improves the film to any significant degreelargely because virtually everything about the film is no less awkward.
The script is at best mediocre and the story line so incoherent that Anthony Hopkins is required to provide constant narrationsomething that has the effect of telling us what happened rather than allowing us to see it happen. But by far the greatest failing of the script and story line is Oliver Stone's decision to present a chunk of the story, such as it is, out of sequence.
In essence, the first half hour of the film establishes the tri-fold conflict between King Philip, Queen Olympias, and the young Alexander and runs up to a major confrontation. At this point the film suddenly jumps eight years ahead to the invasion of Persia, and the jump does not read as intentional but as an outrageous, unexpected, and disastrous flaw in the film. Approximately two hours later the film presents this "lost time" in the form of a flashbackbut by this point of the scenes have been lost and we've all figured out the details anyway. Oliver Stone is a master of creating parallel story lines and time lines. One need look no further than JFK to see his skill. It is astonishing, utterly astonishing, that he could do no better than this and, not being able to do better, did not find a better way entirely.
When all is said and done, Alexander is presented as an out-of-control weakling, his psychological motivations are hilariously pat at best, and it is utterly impossible to imagine that this person could command such a large force, much less lead it to a single victory, much less conquer the known world. Clearly Stone was attempting to reach a new height in epic cinema, but the Greeks had a word for ill-advised ambition founded on a god-like arrogance: hubris. It was a sin they believed was never left unpunished, and in this instance the punishment is a career-crippling, if not entirely career-killing, film.
As noted, there are several DVD versions, including a director's cut that removes approximately fifteen minutes, eight of them dealing with Alexander's sexuality. Bonuses include documentaries on the making of the film and on composer Vangelis, who scored it, as well as an amazingly beside-the-point commentary by director Stone and historian Robin Lane Fox.
Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer