Alexander (2004, U.S.)

Despite featuring one of my all time favorite actresses (Jolie), it took me six years to see this historical drama (one of my favorite genres) because I'd heard such awful things about it.

Let me tell you—they were right. It was like a historical documentary forced into fiction form, therefore combining the dullness that most people (though not I!) associate with history and the inaccuracy of fiction.

Let's see. A very human drama was told with a total lack of human emotion. I was able to infer that Alexander had a very troubled, complex, almost passionate relationship with his mother, yet it falls flat. The best example of a real, passionate relationship is Alexander's almost romantic friendship with Hepastian (one of his warriors) and even it is dull. The dialoge and physical blocking always seemed to stop right when you were about to grasp something important. In the same vein, you never get a clear idea as to character motivations. Why do these men do what they do?

As I hinted before, this is supposed to be an epic film, it should be an epic film, but it's just not. The music, however, if very epic. Which just reinforces the lack of epic-ness. To further reinforce this debacle, there is what I call "the red scene." I cannot even begin to describe. The whole film has been relatively slow and vaguely historically realistic, and suddenly there is a battle in India that turns into a massacre, and everything is awash in red. Not in an "oh it's bloody" sense, but in a "we used the filmmaker's equivalent of MS Paint and splashed red all over our film!" Utterly ridiculous.

For an epic, war-filled film, that was about the most exciting thing that happened—and I even saw the director's cut, "newly inspired, faster paced, more action packed!" What exactly was this inspired by? If this is faster paced, I hate to see how slow the original was. And action? There were essentially two big battle scenes, one of which was the red one.

I've always thought pretty well of Oliver, Stone, but I have to say I lost a bit of respect for him. He thought his film failed because audiences didn't like the very faint homoerotic undercurrents. Stone, admit that it was because your film was awful!

What did I learn about history? Alexander is supposed to be so Great, but from what I can tell from this film, he didn't even make it home from his conquering expedition, didn't actually rule Macedon (at least in person), and he didn't really "conquer" all the East (instead returning rule to local rulers). So is this historically inaccurate or is he remembered for the size of his dreams rather than his accomplishments? I don't know. I do know that the film Alexander will be remembered for the size of its director's vision rather than his actual accomplishment!

Rating: 2.0