Alexander: Mark's Take
01/01/2005 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 

Alexander is a little long and at times slow, but not unrewarding as a movie for history buffs. Much of the film just does not work, but parts are very impressive. A good cinematic biography of this great conqueror is nearly impossible. I would rather be bored learning about the history of Alexander the Great than enthralled by the exploits of Spider Man. Your mileage may vary.

Buy Alexander in the USA - or Buy Alexander in the UK

As soon as I saw the trailer I cringed a little. Colin Ferrall with his hair dyed blond just looks too modern to be Alexander the Great. When I look at Ferrall I see a 21st Century man. Now admittedly Plutarch says that Alexander was "fair and of a light color," but who is to say what would have been considered fair back in the time of Plutarch? On the other hand it is hard for me to build up much resolve to avoid any film set in a historical era. Set a film in Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, or wherever and I am there. [If you don't feel the same way about history films you should take a couple of points off of my ratings. I believe I was one of the few reviewers who enjoyed GODS AND GENERALS, which had many of the same virtues and flaws as ALEXANDER.] From the start it was clear that getting the proper period feel with a hunk like Ferrall in the lead was going to be a tough job. But, hey, could Ferrall really be less like Alexander than Richard Burton was in ALEXANDER THE GREAT? And as for making characters look like they belong in the period, a surprisingly good job is done with that unlikely Macedonian, Val Kilmer.

The next problem is that there is no good length for a feature film of the story of Alexander. If you make it more than a hundred minutes you will start the audience squirming in their seats. Make it only three hundred minutes and you have to leave out important historical material. The story has elements in common with THE LORD OF THE RINGS; it could be told like THE LORD OF THE RINGS was in three theatrical installments. It could be a mini-series on TV. It might even be a four-hour film with an intermission like GETTYSBURG was. Oliver Stone gave us his version in a little under three hours of feature film. That is a little terse. One way to save screen time is to stick to the Plutarch history. That leaves out some of the popular stories but it saves time. In Stone's film Alexander does not cry because there are no more worlds to conquer. He cries for other reasons, but not for that one. Nor does Alexander tackle the Gordian knot. But Plutarch is probably the most reliable author about Alexander. Stone's film seems to take the story almost exclusively from Plutarch and filling in the gaps with drama and speculation.

Another way to save time is to just not dramatize all the important battles. We are told about some of them, but there is neither time nor money to show several battles. We see Gaugamela, in which Alexander beats Darius and inherits his empire. To show us a battle of very different character, we also see the battle of the Hydaspes River (currently in Pakistan) where Porus marshaled elephants against Alexander. Porus lost the battle but broke the spirit of Alexander's army. Between the two extremes we see a wide variety of geography. For most of the rest of Alexander's campaign, Stone breaks a cardinal rule of film-making and does a lot of telling rather than showing. Even Anthony Hopkins as Old Ptolemy doing most of the telling cannot prevent expository lumps with an overlong prologue and epilogue.

But this is getting ahead of ourselves. Stone tells the story of Alexander, taking us to see Alexander as a boy who inherits his father Philip's (played by Val Kilmer) dream to build a world- spanning empire. Alexander is caught as a pawn in the conflicts between his father and his mother, jarringly played by Angelina Jolie. Over thirty-some years she changes no more than Sophia Loren does in EL CID. The script plays up Alexander's respect for other cultures, for women, and other modern-seeming attitudes. All of these Plutarch mentions, though they may not have been as pronounced as the film makes them out to be. Alexander's love for his general and best friend Hephaistion (Jared Leto), though the film falls short of showing the two actually having sex. We see Alexander having sex that is pretty kinky, but it is heterosexual. On screen Alexander is affectionate but not gay. He also remains mother-dominated his entire life, in part for reasons we get in an awkward flashback within a flashback.

While the two battle scenes are spectacular, the film is not always as visually rewarding. In some scenes Alexander is in an area cold enough for frost to form on his brow, but for his breath to freeze. Frequently throughout the film there is poor matte work. I am not expert enough in ancient art to know if some of the art on the walls of the sets was as inaccurate as it seemed, but it looked too contemporary. The repeated heavy use of eye shadow is jarring, but not necessarily untrue. More jarring is the frequent use of American, Irish, and British (especially Scottish) accents. Just why they have Val Kilmer affecting an Irish accent to play an ancient Macedonian is beyond me to know.

Oliver Stone, Christopher Kyle, Laeta Kalogridis wrote the script which takes full advantage of the recent release of the film TROY. Alexander admired Homer's ILIAD and a copy was never far from him. The film makes repeated references to the Homer. Stone returns repeatedly to imagery of eagles and serpents. Both have some mention in the original texts. Plutarch makes one quick reference to an eagle flying over Alexander. The musical score by Vangelis is uninspiring. Early in the film we some welcome familiar character actors, but they disappear quickly. People like Brian Blessed and Christopher Plummer fall into this category. I cannot whole-heartedly recommend ALEXANDER, but for its good points I rate it +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.

For those who want to take a look at the Plutarch, one site is http://tinyurl.com/6sekz.

[Postscript: I finished this review and then put on "Ebert and Roeper at the Movies". Roger Ebert says what he did not like about this film is that the film takes no stand on Alexander, positive or negative. To me that is actually one of the film's virtues. We have come to expect that films will tell us who the good guy is and who the bad guy is. No, this film just gives us a character who is Alexander the Great. He has virtues and he has flaws. Oliver Stone then trusts me to decide overall about the historical figure. That may be one reason I like the film.]