3 hours of dull

Rating: 2/10 (24 December 2004)

I don't know what I was expecting when I walked into this movie. I guess, something along the lines of Troy. Whatever I had in mind, it certainly wasn't what I saw.
The movie started out just fine. The 3,000 year old Anthony Hopkins narration gave the impression that the story of Alexander was a great one, and one that was worth telling. But the more I watched, the more I began to realize how wrong this impression was. The movie just seems to drag on and on, without any arc in the story. Just a straight line, hanging low to the ground, consisting of yawn-inducing dialogue and a few battle scenes which each gave me a headache. That shaky camera technique works just fine on the small screen, but in a theater does nothing to add realism.
The biggest gripe I have isn't really about the length of the movie, (I began to wonder if the movie lasted longer than Alexander himself), but that the use of music is deceiving. Around the second hour of the movie, by the time most movies would normally wrap up, the use of dramatic and triumphant music began to get over-used. This kept causing me to think that the movie was finally over. The picture would fade out, and we'd be back to the old Mr. Hopkins and his narration. He'd mention something incoherent, and then we'd be back to Alexander. It was at this time that people started to leave the theater. From this point on, every 20 minutes, that dramatic music would play and the picture would fade out. Each time I was eager to think that the movie was ending, but then it would start back up again.
By the end of the movie I was actually angry with boredom. Call me immature, but that's how much I didn't like the movie. If you asked me to think of one interesting point in the movie, I'd be at a loss for words. Just don't bother seeing this movie unless you want to spend seven dollars for a three hour nap.