Alexander the Great is a challenging subject: the young man who conquered the known world and suddenly died at 33 crammed so many big achievements into his short career that he has been the subject of song and story for the past 2,300 years.

Alexander by Oliver Stone (Platoon, JFK) is a big, ambitious film. It tries to cram Alexander's entire career into three hours, and fails. Part of the reason for the failure is the disjointed timeline of the film. We learn about several episodes in Alexander's early life, including his stormy relationships with his parents, his taming of Bucephalus, his faithful horse, then we go a-conquering, only to return to Alexander's youth again, where the assassination of his father is shown.

A second flaw is the choice to show Alexander as a conflicted character, continually torn by doubts - this is pretty far off the mark as any Alexander scholar will know. Any number of dramatic scenes like his severing of the Gordian Knot, his meeting with Diogenes, or his visit to the Oasis of Siwa would have nailed the decisiveness of his character with very few words.

This weak, indecisive character is compounded by Stone's choice to cast Colin Farrell in the title role. Farrell is a fine actor in certain roles, but lacks the internal drive and fire to depict the dynamic figure of Alexander. As a result, Alexander comes off as weak and indecisive, a totally opposite characterization of the historical figure.

The film opened with a montage of out of focus shots and I at first thought the filmmakers had screwed up big-time. Then the camera pulls into focus and we see a gigantic hand, obviously in the throes of death and a ring drops to the floor. The opening made sense once the movie got to its final scene where the out of focus shots were repeated - Alexander's thoughts just prior to his death. The rest of the tale did not reach the cinematic heights of this opening scene, however. Alexander was shown to be a simpering, insecure youth and teen ager. A quick look at Arrian's "Campaigns of Alexander" will disabuse the viewer of this notion.

Somehow, we find ourselves in central Asia, several years later at the third of Alexander's four great battles Gaugamela. What happened to the first two? The siege of Tyre is also left out. And how did Alexander attain command of the expedition? And what - no Egypt? We have to wait a couple of hours until Stone inserts an ill-timed flashback that illustrates King Phillip's assassination and Alexander's ascendancy. Stone would have you believe that Alexander had no idea about the assassination and it was all his mother Olympias' fault. A quick look at Arrian and a little thought reveals that Alexander probably had more to do with it than Stone thinks.

In all fairness, the career of Alexander should not be depicted in a single movie. He had more significant achievements in his 33 years than most people that live a century. I had the same criticism about Alexander the Great (1956), a better film. But what Stone leaves out is at least as important as what he puts in. Stone indicates the tension between the boy and his father stems from his witnessing the father raping the mother. History, however, reveals that Philip was jealous of Alexander's leadership of the cavalry when he crushed the Greek confederation. Alexander also raised Philip's hackles when he conquered a city and renamed it Alexandria when left in charge as regent one time. These details would give the story a lot more oomph, if Stone would have put them in. Instead, he tried to give a broad brush view of Alexander, while putting a magnifying glass on his character flaws - he had them, sure, but so what? - rather than his achievements. We are treated therefore to simmering looks between Colin Farrell (Alexander) and Jared Leto (Hephastion).

There are hilarious anomalies also presented as when the famed Macedonian Phalanx drills, we clearly hear the leader yell "Atten - SHUN!," and the phalanx executes the move just like the US Army does. Gee. I didn't know our commands dated back to Alexander's day.

OK, so the screenplay was terrible - what about the acting? Some of the supporting players were excellent, including a few of the recurring companions of Alexander such as Black Cleitus and Parmenion, all unknowns. The headliners, however, were only marginal, with Colin Farrell (Alexander), Jared Leto (Hephastion), and Angelina Jolie (Olympias) as almost laughably bad. Jolie did have a fun part as the evil mother figure that haunted Alexander's psyche. I have vague suspicions her character was modelled after Cruella DeVil from the animated adventure 101 Dalmatians. Rosario Dawson (Roxane) proved to be a real wildcat in her sex scene with Alexander. Finally, a few old hands did good jobs with their support, including Val Kilmer (Philip), Christopher Plummer (Aristotle), and Anthony Hopkins (the old Ptolemy).

The props and costuming was excellent. Camera and lighting, on the other hand, was too variable to be satisfying. There were several areas that appeared to be unintentionally out of focus, for example. The battle scenes, reminiscent of Ridley Scott's work in Gladiator were grainy and fairly interesting but too few and far between. The Vangelis score is also lackluster and ill suited to the material.

All in all I have to say Oliver Stone has put together a turkey in this one folks. You can safely miss this one as it's for fans of the subject matter only.

Much better information about Alexander the Great can be found in the film:

Alexander the Great

And the book: The Campaigns of Alexander

Thanks for reading. Enjoy a good film tonight!



Recommended: No