 Movie
Reviews
with Evelyn Gough
Alexander (MA)
Directed by Oliver Stone
 Angelina Jolie as Queen Olympias, Val Kilmer as King Philip and Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great.
Is it possible that in a couple of thousand years Hitler will be lauded as one of 'The Greatest Heroes in History'? I certainly hope not! Okay, admittedly Alexander the Great didn't indulge in genocide but by the age of 27 in the year 317BC he had blitz krieged his way over 90% of the then known world. He led his Greek and Macedonian armies over 22,000 miles conquering all before him and was never once defeated in a battle. The guy was a military genius and in his people's eyes, a living legend. Now director Oliver Stone is being sued by the Greek government because he has insinuated that Alexander was also gay. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course!)
Personally, if I was Greek, I'd be more pissed off with Stone's decision to cast Colin Farrell as Alexander. How many blonde Macedonians with Irish accents do you know? Not too many, I bet!
If you're expecting a decent history lesson from this three-hour epic, I don't like your chances. The whole film and especially Anthony Hopkins' narration is so convoluted I was completely lost within minutes. Luckily for me I've watched several excellent documentaries on Alexander's life so I was already clued in, but I pity anyone in the audience who had no prior knowledge of his exploits.
Alexander fought and won 50 battles in his short life before dying at the early age of 32 from a ruptured liver, but Stone has chosen to concentrate on the relationships in his life. In other words, don't go expecting three full-on hours of hacking and chopping. What you get are two mighty battle scenes as Alexander takes on the Persians and later the Indians and then it seems the rest of the film is either Alexander (Colin Farrell), his dad Philip (Val Kilmer), his mum Olympias (Angelina Jolie) or his Bactrian wife Roxane (Rosario Dawson) throwing wobblies. And in the few spare minutes when he's not yelling at his family or berating his troops, Alexander's busy gazing into the soulful eyes of his best friend Hephaistion (Jared Leto). Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course!
Oliver Stone has never been one of my favourite directors and Alexander has done nothing to change that opinion. It was overlong, over-wrought and difficult to follow. Even the much anticipated battle scenes were disappointing thanks to choppy editing and arty-farty focusing. And being an animal lover I found the scenes where horses and elephants were killed quite horrifying.
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