Alexander limps along from one fancy set to another.
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"Fortune favours the bold." --Virgil, "The Aeneid"
The years 2004 and 2005 were big on sword-and-sandals epics from big-name directors. We had Antoine Fuqua's "King Arthur" (2004), Wolfgang Petersen's "Troy" (2004), Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005), and Oliver Stone's "Alexander" (2004). I can't say that any of them--movies or directors--succeeded to any remarkable degree.
First, let it be known that Alexander was technically a Macedonian, a king of ancient Macedonia, which in the 4th century B.C. achieved hegemony over Greece, as the Director's Cut of this 2004 movie rendition of the world conqueror tries to make clear. Present-day Macedonians made such a fuss about this matter during the movie's theatrical run, they practically besieged movie houses worldwide. Now, if only director Oliver Stone had been able to engender as much passion in his movie as the Macedonians did in their denouncement of it, this lengthy, tepid film might have had a chance of entertaining us.
As it is, Stone's Director's Cut is still too long and dragged out to be very effective, even with the removal of what I understand was about eighteen minutes of footage (and the addition of about ten minutes more). The keep case says, "Newly inspired, faster paced, more action packed." The idea was to tighten up the narrative and get to the point quicker, but I'm not sure what the point was supposed to be. In real life, Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.) was a king of Macedonia, a ruler of Greek city-states, and a conqueror of the Persian Empire from Asia Minor and Egypt all the way to India. In Stone's portrait of the man, he seems a little less than "Great." How about Alexander the Lukewarm, the Trivial, or perhaps the Eternal Enigma?
I suppose we figure on a lot from the director of "Platoon," "Wall Street," "JFK," "Born on the Fourth of July," "The Doors," and "Salvador." We may forget that he also gave such clunkers as "Nixon" and "Any Given Sunday." Nor does everyone remember the man's excesses. When he does something, he periodically gets carried away with it, leading some critics to believe that the director can become too obsessed with his subject matter. So it is with "Alexander," where Stone wants to do a comprehensive character analysis, a historical documentary, a big battle epic, and possibly even a parable about our own times all rolled into one gigantic, nearly three-hour product. Stone overextends himself. Anyway, let me list a few of the things I liked and a few of the things I didn't like about this extravaganza.
Strengths:
1. I liked the opening credits, which are quite beautiful, artistic, and creative.
2. I liked the settings and set designs, starting with the renowned port of Alexandria, Egypt, and then on to the ancient city of Babylon. This is spectacle on a scale of Cecil B. DeMille and a delight to the eye.
3. I liked the costumes and the pageantry, particularly Alexander's triumphal entrance into Babylon.
4. I liked the musical score by Vangelis. It may not be as memorable as his score for "Chariots of Fire," but it's got some good, subtle, simple tunes working for it, as well as a few instances of big-screen grandeur.
5. I liked Val Kilmer as Philip, Alexander's lustful, boisterous, libertine father. "All your life, beware of women" is the best advice he finds for his son.
6. I liked parts of the battle sequences, especially the CGI and aerial shots, as well as the director's devotion to realism; meaning that the fighting is bloody and riotous in the extreme.
Weaknesses:
1. I didn't care much for the way the story kept jumping around in time. It begins in 323 B.C. at the death of Alexander, then moves ahead forty years to a scene of old Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) as he dictates Alexander's history to a scribe (and to us). After that, the narrative flip-flops around needlessly, going back and forth in Alexander's life from his boyhood to his manhood, back to his childhood, ahead to his teen years, back again to his boyhood, forward again to his adulthood. If there were some purpose to this nonlinear storytelling, I could understand and accept it. If it were being told from multiple points of view, for example, it would have made sense, or if it were a mystery story and we were supposed to be picking up pieces of the puzzle. But no. I simply found the convoluted narrative device distracting.
2. I didn't care for the casting of Colin Farrell as the teen and older Alexander. The myths said that Alexander was born of Zeus, a myth that his mother, reputed to be a sorceress, continued to foster. But I found Farrell too old for the part of the teen Alexander and too wimpy and whiney as the adult Alexander. He's supposed to be a puzzling, unsettled character of whom we must ask, how did he manage to conquer half the known world at such a young age? Was he a great strategist, a great leader of men, a great warrior? In Farrell's (and Stone's) hands we never find out. Alexander seems merely a restless, sometimes petulant, ofttimes conflicted individual who has nothing better to do than conquer countries and name new cities after himself. He seems entirely devoted to individual freedom, and he is most generous to his defeated enemies, yet many of his own people see these traits as weaknesses. We see them only as contradictions that are never resolved in a military man. Worse, Farrell never dominates the screen as the hero of a big-screen epic should. Looking back, Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, Clark Gable, even the stars of "LOTR" were able to hold our attention, no matter how big the production around them. Farrell tends to get lost in the surrounding spectacle.
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 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 but 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 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 ensued. Alexander can't even go into battle without a fifteen-minute oration to rouse his troops and deaden 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. I didn't care for the numerous close-up shots during the battle scenes. They're 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," to make the viewer feel personally and intimately involved with the combat. The actual result, however, is to confuse the viewer. We never see Alexander's tactics to the fullest, his strategies that became so famous, his innovative use of cavalry, and whatnot. We only get a barrage of quick edits from one head being lopped off to another's arm being slashed. While it's all very brutal and very graphic, it isn't really very exciting or very enlightening.
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