Alexander (2004)

Summary: Raised under the watchful eye of his vengeful mother, Olympias (Angelina Jolie), and his capricious father, Philip (Val Kilmer), Alexander (Colin Farrell) grows up unsure of his position as legitimate heir of the united thrones of Macedonia and Greece. After his father's death, Alexander seeks to conquer as much land as he can with the help of many such as Ptomley (Elliot Cowan), Cletius (Gary Stretch), Cassander (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), and his love, Hesphaistion (Jared Leto). Later, Alexander makes the controversial decision to marry a Persian "of no political importance", Roxane (Rosario Dawson).

I knew I was in for a rough ride when I started laughing during the opening credits, but I had no idea how rough the ride would truly be.

At 173 minutes (that's three hours, folks), Oliver Stone (director/producer/co-writer) has turned in one sorry mess. Long, overdone, and completely unwieldy, there is barely anything to make horrible mistake of a movie worthwhile. I did my best to come up with a top 5 list for you, and it was a challenge and a half. Here's what I've got:

Top 5 things that made Alexander barely bearable:

1. Leto - that kid can act! I had no idea how well until now, but he's got some serious chops. He made Hephasition sweet, smart, and sexy without being sorry or pitiable for a single second. Go Leto! I loved the tender scenes between him and Farrel.
2. Short skirts! I've never seen skirts so short on men in movies before. They were like when girls go out nowadays with scarves wrapped around their arses, only a little bit more flowy.
3. Kilmer's prosthetic chin! Or Kilmer generally. I really liked his take on the tyrannical Macedonian ruler.
4. Connor Paolo (Young Alexander)! He looks crazy like Farrel, and he even manages to imitate Farrel's oscillating Irish accent even though he's from NYC. That's incredible.
5. Anthony Hopkins' narrating voice. That one doesn't really deserve an exclamation mark. He plays older Ptolemy, and his character is dictating the entire story to some mute scribes.

I was also going to make a Top 5 for why this movie is so bad, but I do believe that my reasons for thinking so are many more than just five. Here we go.

What the hell is the matter with Farrel? He used to be a scene stealing genius. When he made his American debut is Joel Schumacher's brilliant Tigerland, he nailed a Southern accent and quickly became someone to keep my eye on. Since then, however, my eye has been near terrified to watch. The number of poor role choices this once smoldering star has made is appalling. Here, except in the quiet scenes he shares with Leto, he completely overacts, making his performance near unbearable. And that hair is so very awful. Also, I believe he could have benefited from choosing one accent instead of wavering between two or three for all those hours. It can't be that hard.

Jolie can't act at all. In fact, in one scene, she actually howls, which I found disturbing as heck. I will never understand why she won an Oscar for Girl, Interrupted since that movie was sucky anyway. She chews up the scenery and plants laughing eyes in every scene she can, regardless of whether or not they are applicable. Her accent really threw me for a loop. I understood that her character was supposed to be Greek, so what's with her bad Russian accent? Was she preparing for her upcoming role as the sexy despot Catherine the Great? I'll never know.

Why was Cowan cast as young Ptolmey? He looks nothing like Hopkins. Nothing. And how was Ptomley supposed to know about all these intimate moments between Alexander and his mother/father/lover/wife? He wasn't even there, it seems, when young Alexander was under the tutelage of Aristotle (Christopher Plummer, who would have had to burst into song to save this sinking ship). There was never any indication that Ptomley was anything close to a confidant of Alexander's. And then, after he tells the whole "rousing" story, he admits that he never really believed in Alexander. What the hell is the point, then?

Things like that just show the complete lack of thought on the parts of Stone and his co-writers Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis. Here's some advice for Stone et al. : When your screenplay raises more questions than it answers, it's never a good sign. I don't even think it's a good sign when you make crazed conspiracy theorist movies (e.g. Stone's completely implausible bullet theories in JFK). They all worked so hard to simultaneously reinforce and negate Alexander's homosexuality that no clear point was made about it. I mean, are we supposed to believe that he was kind of gay? A little bit gay? Sometimes gay? I always thought it was pretty binary, like being pregnant.

And then they had Paolo horse-whisperer that wild horse? That was just dumb. No one horse whisperered anything back then.

For the record, it's Her-Q-lees, not Hair-A-cles.

Of course, the ridiculously stupid crowd I found myself with in that theatre didn't help. They actually laughed their way through every moment of tenderness between Alexander and Hesphaistion (and I would like to reiterate, the best scenes in the whole awful thing) and then were near hysterical when he died! So overcome with anger was I at the crowd that I nearly yelled out, "HE'S GAY!!!!!" So, so unimpressed. Clearly a group with a level of collective maturity even lower than mine.

Also, Vangelis' score was just as cheap rip off of Hans Zimmer's score for Gladiator, which this movie will never be.

I have always believed that Alexander's relationship with his father, Philip II of Macedonia, had more of an impact on him than his mother's. Rumoured to have raised his son among lions to breed fearlessness, Philip actually tried to impale his son. I don't know about you, but that would have an impact on me.

Overall, I refuse to allow Alexander the Great to be reduced to a sullen mamma's boy. D