FanUnity B(uzz)log

I'm a big fan of the historical epic genre. I love movies that mix history, drama and action and take a few liberties with the facts to tell a good story. "Gladiator", "Braveheart" and "El Cid" rate among my favorite movies of all-time. Some of the most heralded classics of cinema, like "Lawrence Of Arabia", "Ben-Hur", "Cleopatra" and "Spartacus" define the genre. Even relatively mediocre efforts like recent films "Kingdom Of Heaven", "Troy" and even "The Patriot" were enjoyable films to me. As a fan of this now-declining category, the prospect of a film about Alexander The Great had me very excited.

Oliver Stone royally screwed this one up. "Alexander" is based on one of the most fascinating figures in all of history. This is a guy who conquerored the known world by the time he was 27. He managed to take an army from Greece, best Egypt and Persia, and much of India. There have been plenty of megalomanics in the history of the world who had their mind on doing something like this — Napoleon, Hitler, Saddam — but this is the only megalomanic clever enough to actually pull it off. Do we get to look inside this strategic mind, and get the measure of a man whose ambition was so insatible that all of the lands he'd ever heard of would swear fealty to his name?

Not so much. We get pop-psychology and some pretty pictures. We get a foppish Colin Farrell, who is impossible to buy into as a military genius and as a leader of men. He's roughly as believeable in this role as Jessica Alba is as the world's leading geneticist in "The Fantastic Four." Alexander is dominated by his super-hot mother (Angelina Jolie), constantly behaving in effeminate ways and more concerned with "conqueroring the thighs", as narrator Sir Anthony Hopkins so eloquently puts it, of his best-bud Hephaistion (Jared Leto) on-camera than he is with any particular military strategy.

An nice example that sums up the inadequacy of "Alexander" as a historical epic is when, just before the big battle with the Persians, the great conqueror rides up to his troops to deliver an impassioned speech that will inspire them to victory on this most precarious of days for his empire. Instead of writing some golden words for Farrell to say, and coaxing a stirring performance out of the charasmatic young actor, Stone chooses to let his camera drift away from the speech and follow a bird in flight. We circle above the troops with the bird for a bit, and come back down as the speech concludes with the troops fired up. Nice try, Mr. Stone, but you aren't pawning that cop-out off on anyone here as artistry.

"Alexander" isn't a worthless film, like say "xXx: State Of The Union", because Stone does an excellent job as a photographer of moving pictures, putting together some beautiful visuals. There are elements in "Alexander" that are interesting, and while the main character is weakly portrayed, the tale is still somewhat compelling based on its basic historical premise. But unfortunately Stone is too caught up in the emotional psychology and sexuality of Alexander to deal in depth with the business of conquering the known world, which you must figure must have been an overriding passion of Alexander's since one does not exactly accomplish world conquest on a half-hearted whim.

"Alexander" ends up being a film that needs a do-over (and I don't mean by Baz Luhrmann). Some other filmmaker who can bring a Ridley Scott or Mel Gibson-like dramatic focus to the material should make the film Oliver Stone failed to make. "Alexander" joins movies like "The Hulk", the first two "Star Wars" prequels, "The Matrix" sequels, "The Alamo", "The Messenger: The Story Of Joan Of Arc" and any film ever made about King Arthur and his knights as one of those movies with a great premise, but unfortunately flawed execution.

2/5 Stars.