Too artistic for Hollywood?

Rating: 10/10 (27 November 2004)

I will break my comments down to two parts. First one for those who haven't seen the movie, followed by one for those who have seen.
First do not expect this movie to an epic. It is NOT. And in a certain sense we haven't had epics in a long time (despite what the critics say about Gladiator or Troy). Alexander's life was complex, as is the life of any individual. Telling Alexander's story is even more complex because we only know his life from History books. It is not like we could trace his mother and have her crying in sixty minutes. So in this way Oliver Stone's task was a difficult one. But Oliver Stone doesn't take the easy way. He decides to make a movie the is not about Alexander the man, it is a movie about Alexander the Myth. I can't go into detail, in this first part because it contains spoilers. This movie certainly doesn't have a traditional three acts screenplay. Maybe that is why this movie averages almost ten for people between ages 15 to 30 and so low for older people. It is not the plot line people expected to see either. It is about a great general, being bold and decisive like in Patton, or Gladiator. It is not about people fighting for their survival against evil. (By the way I have some problems with people calling TLOTR an epic). The flow of the movie isn't a consistent one, it alternates, going five years later, ten years back, whatever Oliver Stone feels good about it. I don't know what all this criticism about the flow is. Remember that before Oliver Stone directed his movies he was just a screenwriter, and he won a best screenplay academy award. So the critics should at least reflect a little bit and conclude that Oliver Stone is trying to say something with that. After all, Cinema is an art form that communicates what the creator wants to say in many various forms, not only words. For those who haven't seen it I say that you should be careful. Go to the movies not trying to see what YOU want to see, but trying to understand what OLIVER STONE is trying to say. So if you just sit back and relax, you might get a lot of interesting ideas and a really good plot.
Second Part - SPOILERS -
I guess that what many people didn't get is that we only know Alexander from history books. So it is more than acceptable that we listen to a story told by someone close to him, Ptolemy. By the way, Hopkins delivers another good performance. And so we see Alexander growing up, what kind of teachings he got from his mother, the idea that he was the sun of the gods, Aristotle lectures and his father's teachings. We then see all his ideas about greatness going into action, and how those reflect on his character. Does he get more self centered or was he that way all the time. It seems that Alexander is not a King that cares about his people, except when he needs them to fight. Note that he only gives his soldiers something when they complaint about it to him. Colin Farrell delivers the greatest performance of the year when he shows us a complex Alexander. We look at him and in the same scene we can see Alexander afraid, courageous, destined to greatness, and self absorbed. It was truly amazing how he could deliver all those emotions, changing his Alexander within the same scene. People got a little bit confused when late in the movie we flash back to see Philip's assassination. (great performance by Val Kilmer). But Stone was trying to make a parallel about Philip's death and Alexander the King that pushed it to the limit and killed the only man his father could trust. And it comes to an Alexander that couldn't hold himself together because he didn't know if he even deserved to be there. That's what Stone was trying, at least the way I understood. And with Alexander's terrible wound in India and his decision to go back home it is like he was dead already. After all Alexander was just a dream and once the dream is dead, there isn't much left. So in the last scene Ptolemy says they hated him so much that they killed Alexander, but right after that he corrects himself saying that it was just an old man talking. That is Oliver Stone way of saying that Alexander was just a man, who had many flaws and made many mistakes, but the legend, the myth of Alexander, the dream of power and unity for the whole world, that's what is important, that's what echoes through the history books, and that is Alexander.
So maybe next time Oliver Stone should just make Anthony Hopkins say exactly what he wants to say because using the many interesting aspects of cinema has become too difficult for the minds of moviegoers who expect information to be told. And if you are required to think, well, let's just say it's a bad movie. And in a few years, we can look to the world and whatever wars might be going on and say... hey, where is Maximus to save us?