An old Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) dictates his
knowledge of the life of Alexander the Great to a scribe
(David Bedella) in Alexander, Oliver Stone’s
latest experimental epic. Stone shows us much of the
legacy of the powerful conqueror of many lands, but
bridges important gaps in time with narration from
Ptolemy. Even with nearly a three-hour running length,
only the surface of Alexander the Great’s reign is
scratched, in the movie. Ironically, much of what is
spoken of in the voice-overs is far more interesting
than some of the portions of the film that are acted
out. With so much history to cover, Stone finds himself
drowning in a sea of facts and events. His movie is
ambitious, but rarely rises above its own setbacks.
The movie opens to Alexander’s
childhood, and spends about a half an hour explaining
just how he came to power. These sequences almost seem
ridiculous; not only does Angelina Jolie completely
overact as the boy’s mother, but Stone’s style is
reminiscent of countless History Channel documentaries
on the same subject. However, once Alexander overcomes
his own youth and gains control of an the Macedonian
Empire, the mood of the film becomes more serious. Colin
Farrell, in the lead role, portrays his widely-known
character with the correct amount of oomph and
originality. The movie is never boring, if only
sporadically involving. I can’t say that I completely
regret seeing it.
Alexander also has many
problems in its execution. The picture is amazingly
uneven; the tone shifts an almost uncomfortable amount
of times. At many points in the duration, I couldn’t,
for the life of me, figure out what the characters were
thinking or feeling. However, emotion is not dealt with
in a complex way in the picture, but an incomprehensible
one. In many ways, Alexander is the Primer
of historical epics, equipped with a questionable
structure and muddled narrative. In fact, there is one
extended flashback in the movie which shows the death of
Alexander’s father that, until five minutes into the
scene, I thought was taking place in real time. The
theatrical release of Alexander feels more like a
rough cut than the final product.
To its credit, Alexander
has two amazing, sweeping battle scenes. The first of
which occurs when Alexander and his men execute a plan
to beat the Persian army and overthrow its leader,
despite the fact that they are greatly outnumbered. The
key to this sequence is that, in its length and gigantic
scale, it makes the viewer think. The barbarian methods
of fighting and interesting battle strategies draw
recognizable parallels to other wars and periods in
history. This is where the small amount of depth in
Alexander can be found. The other major battle in
the movie takes place near its end and, while not as
engaging or insightful as the first one, it offers some
tremendous visuals and trained-animal work.
Stone wanted to make
Alexander a riveting epic tale, but most of his
material isn’t very intriguing. Strangely, though, it
never really struck me as awful, when watching it. I
suppose that the historical significance of its subject
matter makes it a bit of an interesting failure.
However, the only new ideas that are presented in this
telling of Alexander the Great’s life are his alleged
bisexuality and the somewhat revelatory conclusion to
Ptolemy’s narration. Neither of which have been
scientifically proven. In essence, Alexander was
dead on arrival, and it delivers what it promises, if
not a tad more. In a year, it’ll be playing on HBO
regularly, and will make for some background noise that
is more educational than, say, re-runs of “Fear Factor”.
Then, at least, its jumbled plot won’t seem so goddamn
lackluster.
-Danny, Bucket Reviews (11.28.2004)