What's Everyone Else On About!?

Rating: 4/10 (4 August 2005)

Seriously, i watched this film last night and now i'm on IMDb reading a lot of the reviews, and all of you seem to be missing the point! People seem to be giving this film high ratings mainly out of anger at low ratings it got from critics or other IMDb users! The amount of 10 out of 10's at the top of the review page is quite frankly ridiculous. You can't rate a film this high simply because it's overall mark is lower that what you might want it to be. Other people have ranked it highly because it's historically accurate and true to the source material, but this once again does not warrant a high rating. The question should simply be, IS THIS FILM ACTUALLY ANY GOOD:
Well the answer, sadly, is no. The reasons, (and i won't patronise anyone here by going into how historically accurate it may be, or whether it was too homo-erotic or not) are as follows: It was poorly directed, and lacked any connection with the audience on an emotional or even purely adrenaline fuelled level. The battle scenes had no punch to them, and were in fact quite confusing. No heart pounding scenes of horror like at the beginning of gladiator. The final death scene was just boring, and i didn't really care enough about Alexander to give a damn anyway, unlike Maximus in Gladiator which definitely tugged on the heart strings.
The editing is just down right slapstick, i'm still not really sure if it was just rushed or Oliver was playing with some stylised idea, but it jumps around almost haphazardly. I am not simply talking about the flashbacks either! Many times the next scene will start right on the back of the old one and your mind has to catch up to whats going on, with a completely different mood to the scene.
The acting i will not comment on as i'm sure some people will love it and others may not, and i really want this to be an objective review!
Now here comes the worst part of the film for me. The soundtrack!! What is that i hear you say, the soundtrack? Well yes, you did hear me correctly, and i'm not simply talking about the music itself, which is terrible, but where it is placed in the film. For me, it single handedly manged to destroy the mood of almost every scene in the film, and i think many of the scenes would have had a bigger impact if just left silent(as in no score). The music is horribly cheesy, there isn't really much more i can say about it without starting to rant. As for when they use it, in the first battle scene the score sounds like it should be played after they have won the battle, as victory music, rather that during the battle, and makes the whole seen seem somewhat contrived.
The last part has to be the accents. Anyone who's seen the film knows whats coming...HOW FUNNY WAS THAT!!!! Angela was transylvanian or something, and almost everyone else was Irish!!!!!! Why is this, to hide Collin Farrels accent? He does a pretty good job of a Texan accent in tigerland so trying to find a neutral English accent shouldn't be too hard for him. The accents just added to take any real sense of realism from the film, and though it maybe accurate it felt more like a popcorn flick than an historical epic, which is ultimately why it must be reviewed so harshly!
I give this film a 4 out of 10, and those 4 i've given are because of its historical accuracy, and because the director had the balls to not shy away from scenes that many may consider to 'Gay' for the big screen, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. Alas, i am sorry Oliver, but these facts alone cannot save what is ultimately a poor effort.
Note: (Please Read) As for the comparisons to King Arthur i read, and how people can't believe Alexander could get a lower mark, let me explain. King Arthur is terrible, i mean atrocious, and that is what ultimately saves it. It's so bad, it ends up becoming a parody and a comedy! I was laughing so hard in the cinema, and just had to get some of my friends together and go see it again. I mean what a load of tosh, but maybe disguised genius, like John Woo's Windtalkers. Did these directors actually want to make films this bad? Probably not, but i for one had lots of fun watching these films through there crapness, and came out bubbling. I came it of Alexander feeling totally indifferent, unaffected. My English teacher once told me that you can love something or hate it and that means that it has worked in someway, that it is a success. But if you only feel indifference, then it has done nothing and is the most abject of failures. Think about it!