Alexander (HD DVD)

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3. I didn't care for the casting of Angelina Jolie as Olympia, Alexander's mother. Her character is intended to be that of an exotic, scheming temptress, her playthings snakes; and certainly Jolie fits the physical bill. But as Alexander grows and matures, the mother remains essentially the same. By the time Alexander is in his late twenties, he looks older than his mom (in reality Jolie and Farrell are about the same age, Jolie only a few months older). More displeasing, Jolie never convinced me of her character's strength or cunning. I kept seeing Laura Croft, instead. Nor was I persuaded enough by either Farrell or Jolie to accept their love-hate relationship with one another. I had the feeling that Stone, who cowrote the script, didn't fully understand their relationship, either, and made it purposely ambiguous.

4. I didn't care for the long speeches and endless stretches of dialogue that are only extended further in the "Revisited" cut. Alexander goes into battle with an oration to rouse his troops that seems to last most of the first disc and deadens the tempo of the film. It's all talk, talk, talk, when it's some action the audience came to see. A little philosophizing goes a long way, and in the case of "Alexander," it goes on forever.

5. While most of the battle sequences can be exhilarating, I didn't care for the numerous close-up shots Stone employs. These shots are doubtless meant to get the viewer as close to the fighting as possible, duplicating the success the director found in his football flick, "Any Given Sunday," and make the viewer feel personally and intimately involved with the combat. The actual result, however, is often to confuse the viewer. We seldom see Alexander's tactics to the fullest, his strategies that became so famous, his innovative use of cavalry, and whatnot. Despite what appear to be a number of changes in "Revisited," we still get a barrage of quick edits from one head being lopped off to another's arm being slashed. Regardless of the fact that it can be graphically realistic, it isn't always very exciting or very enlightening.

6. What's more, I didn't care for Stone's skipping over so many of Alexander's battles. This is an extremely lengthy movie about one of history's greatest conquerors, yet we are shown only a couple of major engagements, like Alexander's defeat of Darius at the beginning of the movie and several of his encounters in India toward the end of the movie. It isn't enough, given that everything in between feels like filler.

7. Finally, as if I needed to mention it again, I didn't care for the movie's new length any more than I cared for its old, shorter (?!) length. At the intermission point, I was ready to throw in the towel. If adding forty more minutes to an already overlong movie was Stone's idea of making the film more attractive and more sensible, he didn't quite do for this viewer. Now, understand, I don't mind long movies, per se. I loved the extended cuts of "The Lord of the Rings," and I've always enjoyed epics like "Spartacus" and "Gone With the Wind." But those movies had plots that involved us, characters that attracted us, and action that inspired us. I remember seeing a documentary on the History Channel about Alexander that was more absorbing and more captivating than this movie. "Alexander Revisited" limps along from one fancy set to another, from one long speech to the next, without providing much more inspiration or revelation than in its first incarnations.

When Alexander was twenty-five, he had become king of all Persia. But in the movie that event occurs about a quarter of the way into the plot. We've still got almost three hours to go! From then on, it's all court intrigues and jealousies, and more and more talk. I couldn't help wondering, though, as I watched Alexander showing mercy to his new subjects, treating the Persians as equals, even taking a foreign woman to wife, if Stone wasn't making a comparison to our present-day conquest of Iraq and indirectly criticizing the way we have handled the current situation in that country. Stone is a political animal, and his movies always have an ulterior motive. Yet this time, it's a pretty vague parallel if it's there at all.

Alexander reached the end of the known world, and at age thirty-two or three, with no more worlds left to conquer, he died. Clearly, Stone tried to make more than a simple action adventure from this material. However, if the movie was trying to explain a perplexing historical figure, it didn't make it. Despite the newly added material, the rearranging of details, the flashbacks, the dialogue, and the voice-over narration, we know no more about the man at the end of the film than we did when we started.

Video:
The 1080, VC1-encoded video quality on the two HD DVDs can hardly be faulted. The picture is excellent. The video engineers maintain the movie's original 2.40:1 screen dimensions in a ratio that measures over 2.26:1 across my screen, given my television's slight overscan. Colors are terrific, the image displaying among the richest tapestries of hues and tints you could want, and all of them conveyed in high-def splendor. There are a few scenes that look somewhat dark and murky and others that are a tad soft, but they are few and far between. Definition is almost always crisp and clean, and grain is practically zero. Overall, the picture sparkles, the imagery is gorgeous, and most of the film is a feast for the eye, particularly the Babylon scenes and the jungles of India.

Audio:
One's first disappointment is that WB failed to include a Dolby TrueHD track, but the Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 processing is plenty good enough. The soundtrack is more subtle than you might expect in a big blockbuster-type film, and the DD+ does it proud. There are some wonderfully light, nuanced moments of music and sound as well as big, thunderous ones. Bass is deep and taut, dynamics are strong, and stereo spread is wide, with good surround effects in the battle scenes. Most important, the DD+ reproduction is clearer than regular Dolby Digital. For instance, before I could barely make out what Brian Blessed, as the wrestling instructor, was saying to the boys in his charge because the surrounding noise was so loud and his voice was so obscured. Now, in DD+ his voice comes through with fine clarity, as does most of the rest of the midrange.

Extras:
Disc one contains the first part of the film, with the first twenty-seven scene selections; English as the only spoken language; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired. In addition, disc one contains an introduction by Oliver Stone (in high definition), an audio commentary by Oliver Stone, and another audio commentary by historian and Alexander biographer Robin Lane Fox. Needless to say, Stone's comments are more directed at the filmmaking aspects of the movie, along with speculation about what really happened historically, and Fox's comments are more about the history, period.

Disc two contains the concluding part of the film, with chapters twenty-eight through forty-seven, the attendant commentaries, plus several impressive extras (in standard def): A quite lengthy documentary that Sean Stone, the director's son, filmed, produced, and directed called "Fight Against Time: Oliver Stone's Alexander," a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Alexander," seventy-six minutes long; and three further segments, "Resurrecting Alexander," twenty-six minutes, "Perfect Is the Enemy of Good," twenty-eight minutes, and "The Death of Alexander," thirty-one minutes. These documentaries take us backstage with the director, the actors, and the filmmakers, who discuss the background of the story, the historical Alexander, the costumes, the sets, and pretty much everything else a person would want to know about the production, including why Oliver Stone wanted to make the picture in the first place. In addition, there is a short, four-minute soundtrack featurette, "Vangelis Scores Alexander," in which the composer discusses his work; as well as a widescreen teaser and theatrical trailers.

Parting Shots:
Of the several movies I mentioned at the beginning of the review, I thought "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Troy" were the best of the lot, with "Alexander Revisited" and "300" hanging in, and "King Arthur" bringing up the rear. Still, you don't expect an Oliver Stone film to be simply hanging in; you expect Stone to be crafting something a lot better or at least a lot less conventional and tedious, especially on his third time around. It's like what my good friend Tim Raynor said when I told him I was reviewing the newest version of the movie: "Alexander? Oh, yeah, I think I saw that in the theater, but I can't remember much about it." Very true. For instance, older viewers who saw "Ben-Hur" or "Spartacus" in theaters fifty years ago can still recall vivid details, specific scenes such as the galley slaves or the chariot race or the fight-to-the-death in the arena. "Alexander Revisited," on the other hand, is made up a zillion little pieces that are easily forgotten because they don't add up to much.

The fact is, Stone could have made a great action movie from his subject matter, or a great historical drama, or a great character study. Instead, he tried to combine all three and wound up being his own worst enemy. Like Alexander, Stone seems to have been too ambitious and overextended himself. Trying to make amends in this "Revisited" cut helps a little, and certainly the high-definition picture and sound help a lot, but none of it alleviates the movie's basic problems.

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