Probably the worst movie I have ever seen. Boring, tedious, inaccurate, and simply a terrible film.
Alexander is portrayed as a flaming queen and spends more time spouting his 'love' of Hephaistion than fighting battles. The puupy dog looks between Alex and Bagoas made me want to hurl.
Their are only two battles and both have some upside's, but overall, very, very, poorly done. You get no sense of the scope, of the tactics, or of the drama. The battles are quick and the narration glosses many years with many blanks, leaving more screen time to have long soliloquies from Alexander on the 'brotherhood of man' that are just pathetic.
From the nationalist standpoint, a draw. Stone clearly, clearly, hedged his bets. One moment Alexander is a Greek, the next a 'Macedonian'. From Alexander being the 'first Greek to have Persians bow to him' to Philip 'waiting all his life for the Greeks to pay their obedience to him', Stone alternates from one to the other, and my friends were clearly confused.
To top it off, the soundtrack sucks. I personally like Vangelis, but having Alexander charge into battle with some kind of glamorized elevator music was horrific.
The only highlight's of this movie is Jolie's portrayal of Olympias. It is a great performance and the way I have always envisioned her (and she is hot!). Kilmer's Philip is also pretty good. The boorish and drunkard Philip is actually humorous (although a bad mark on this great man's reputation). The other highlight is Roxana's (Rosario Dawsons)breasts.
A brutal movie.
Posted on Nov 25, 2004, 9:47 AM from IP address 24.69.255.236