Rated R » Grade: C
The old adage tells us, "If you love, love without reservation; if you fight, fight without fear." Oliver Stone’s new epic, "Alexander," would like to live up to both of those bits of advice, but is often too busy wringing its hands to fulfill either one.
The Alexander of the title is the Macedonian king, Alexander the Great, founder of Alexandria in Egypt (and a host of other cities by the same name, though not all of them have survived to the present day). Born in the year 356 B.C., Alexander was the son of a hard-fighting, hard drinking general, Philip (Val Kilmer) and a sorceress named Olympias (Angelina Jolie, whose juju must be strong indeed: she spends the movie looking like she’s in a L’Oreal commercial). Young Alexander (played by Jessie Kamm and, as a 13 year old, Connor Paolo) carries a rather modern-looking set of psychic scars to match his increasingly battered physique: his father’s drunken rages and his mother’s ruthless connivances alienate him from both of them, though in later life he has flashbacks to episodes of domestic violence and hallucinations of an Oedipal stripe.
Young Alexander proves his ability as a leader by whispering a horse into submission; the steed becomes his mount in battle as he conquers nearly the entire known world and delves deep into India. As a king and warrior, the adult Alexander (Colin Farrell) shows that he knows how to whisper his way into the heart and soul of an army: flattering, cajoling, and sometimes upbraiding his men, Alexander leads them from battle to battle and conquest to conquest -- first against the slick and wily King of the Persians, Darius (Raz Degan) and then against… well, everyone. Forty years after Alexander’s death, Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) dictates his memoirs of campaigns, and growing pains, in the company of Alexander and the rest of his band of warriors, and notes that Alexander brought many tribes under his glorious rule, conquering for the sake of universal freedom, leaving no barbarian behind -- he was a uniter, not a divider.
This is, of course, Stone up to his usual cranky polemics. We hear all about a military adventure in the mid-east that should have been taken care of quickly, but that ended up taking three years to sort out; we’re treated to surly observations about the elusive King Darius, that although he is no longer in power, he’s hiding in the hills and therefore a figure around which guerilla fighters can rally; we even see Alexander indulge in a moment of, "You’re either for us or against us" when he turns on one of his advisors to hector him with a juicy, "Old man -- we’re in new worlds!" The dialogue might as well wink and nod to the audience, because otherwise it is flat and monotonous.
The picture as a whole, in fact, is bedeviled by a lack of fizz and a dragging pace that is not improved by a general dramatic slackness. Alexander may fight fearlessly -- he has certainly made it a mission in life to conquer fear, and thus death; his version of dying in glorious battle, like his idol Achilles. But we see him in action in only two battles -- a disappointment, frankly, because who goes to a three hour epic about the world’s first great conquering hero expecting to see a measly two battlefield sequences? And what dully executed battles they are. Everything from the sky-darkening rains of arrows to spears plunging through struggling warriors is old news; there are a couple of nice moments involving big rocks (a quite audible hip-breaking in one case; a graphic, if quick, skull smashing in the other), and when Alexander comes up against Indian fighters and their trained elephants, a shot of a tusk, rather than a spear, impaling a soldier gives the action a little spark. But overall it’s more of the usual cast-of-thousands (of CGI engineers, that is) dusty-killing-field stuff. You’ve seen it in movies like "The Mummy Returns," "The Scorpion King," and, of course, "Troy."
To be sure, Stone lifts plenty from a lot of movies, including the occasional chick flick ("Fried Green Tomatoes" with that death scene, sir?), but doesn’t quite manage to make any of his borrowings, or even his original ideas, his own. The bulk of the film is about rivalries and politically adversarial competitions for influence, with the occasional assassination resulting, this too we’ve seen before, and better, and on television no less (the BBC production "I, Claudius" pretty much sets the standard). But Stone’s take is all so dreary and muddled that one can’t help thinking back, none too fondly, to similarly smudgy Stone efforts like "JFK," where what should be a straightforward storyline is hindered and obscured at every turn by unfocused writing and ham-handed direction.
As for the romantic part of it all… well, there’s already a flap brewing in Greece over Stone’s supposed acknowledgement of Alexander’s so-called bisexuality. In point of fact, Stone and Farrell present Alexander as being queer as a three-drachma ingot, but refuse to let the man do anything more with his beloved Hephaistion (Jared Leto) than give him an occasional bear hug and talk about how they are like Achilles and Patroklos (and we know how that turned out). We see Alexander being tempted by a lithe dancing boy in India; we see him give his eunich a come-hither look as he crawls in under an animal pelt; and, when Alexander finally embarks on a quest for an heir (with somewhat less success than he has in his military adventures) with his controversial non-Macedonian bride Roxan (Rosario Dawson), we are treated to the most disturbing and fey encounter between a man and a woman since that regrettable train ride in Ken Russell’s "The Music Lovers." We don’t really get a chance to see Alexander in love, because far from loving without reservation, the movie, and the characters in it, are full of reservations and doubts. Except for Roxan, of course, who, in a moment right out of a telenovela, walks in on Alexander and Hephaistion just as the boys are having a not-so-subtle moment: Hephaistion is slipping a ring onto Alexander’s wedding-band finger. And this is on Alexander and Roxan’s wedding night. You can see where Roxan might feel a tad put out.
Such keeings and preenings are the stuff of this film, unfortunately, and given the vast stretches of Alexander’s life that are glossed over (most everything that doesn’t qualify as the ancient world’s equivalent of "The O.C."), the only epic thing about it -- aside from its 182 minute running time -- is its lavish production. Visually, it’s a striking movie, especially when Stone gives us a pause from the endlessly lousy dialogue: Alexander takes an arrow in battle and the world turns a blood-red around him; old Ptolemy gazes in silent contemplation at the Alexandrian harbor, overseen by its famed lighthouse. For these moments the story seems to unspool itself in a gracious manner, untrampled and relieved, but they are scarce and fleeting moments.
Whatever its production values, in terms of story, action, and character, "Alexander" is so very overwrought that by the time our peroxided hero and his army find themselves slogging through the torrential rainfall of the Indian jungle, it’s even money as to whether the inclement conditions are the result of monsoon season or the unremitting humidity of the script. Five years from now we’ll probably look back on this project and ask the obvious question: wouldn’t someone like Pedro Almodovar have been a more fitting choice as director for a movie about a gay action hero?
By Killian Melloy
Reprinted from EDGEBoston.com
Copyright 2004 EDGE Publications, LLC
All Rights Reserved
Photo Source: Warner Brothers.
The Alexander of the title is the Macedonian king, Alexander the Great, founder of Alexandria in Egypt (and a host of other cities by the same name, though not all of them have survived to the present day). Born in the year 356 B.C., Alexander was the son of a hard-fighting, hard drinking general, Philip (Val Kilmer) and a sorceress named Olympias (Angelina Jolie, whose juju must be strong indeed: she spends the movie looking like she’s in a L’Oreal commercial). Young Alexander (played by Jessie Kamm and, as a 13 year old, Connor Paolo) carries a rather modern-looking set of psychic scars to match his increasingly battered physique: his father’s drunken rages and his mother’s ruthless connivances alienate him from both of them, though in later life he has flashbacks to episodes of domestic violence and hallucinations of an Oedipal stripe.
Young Alexander proves his ability as a leader by whispering a horse into submission; the steed becomes his mount in battle as he conquers nearly the entire known world and delves deep into India. As a king and warrior, the adult Alexander (Colin Farrell) shows that he knows how to whisper his way into the heart and soul of an army: flattering, cajoling, and sometimes upbraiding his men, Alexander leads them from battle to battle and conquest to conquest -- first against the slick and wily King of the Persians, Darius (Raz Degan) and then against… well, everyone. Forty years after Alexander’s death, Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) dictates his memoirs of campaigns, and growing pains, in the company of Alexander and the rest of his band of warriors, and notes that Alexander brought many tribes under his glorious rule, conquering for the sake of universal freedom, leaving no barbarian behind -- he was a uniter, not a divider.
This is, of course, Stone up to his usual cranky polemics. We hear all about a military adventure in the mid-east that should have been taken care of quickly, but that ended up taking three years to sort out; we’re treated to surly observations about the elusive King Darius, that although he is no longer in power, he’s hiding in the hills and therefore a figure around which guerilla fighters can rally; we even see Alexander indulge in a moment of, "You’re either for us or against us" when he turns on one of his advisors to hector him with a juicy, "Old man -- we’re in new worlds!" The dialogue might as well wink and nod to the audience, because otherwise it is flat and monotonous.
The picture as a whole, in fact, is bedeviled by a lack of fizz and a dragging pace that is not improved by a general dramatic slackness. Alexander may fight fearlessly -- he has certainly made it a mission in life to conquer fear, and thus death; his version of dying in glorious battle, like his idol Achilles. But we see him in action in only two battles -- a disappointment, frankly, because who goes to a three hour epic about the world’s first great conquering hero expecting to see a measly two battlefield sequences? And what dully executed battles they are. Everything from the sky-darkening rains of arrows to spears plunging through struggling warriors is old news; there are a couple of nice moments involving big rocks (a quite audible hip-breaking in one case; a graphic, if quick, skull smashing in the other), and when Alexander comes up against Indian fighters and their trained elephants, a shot of a tusk, rather than a spear, impaling a soldier gives the action a little spark. But overall it’s more of the usual cast-of-thousands (of CGI engineers, that is) dusty-killing-field stuff. You’ve seen it in movies like "The Mummy Returns," "The Scorpion King," and, of course, "Troy."
To be sure, Stone lifts plenty from a lot of movies, including the occasional chick flick ("Fried Green Tomatoes" with that death scene, sir?), but doesn’t quite manage to make any of his borrowings, or even his original ideas, his own. The bulk of the film is about rivalries and politically adversarial competitions for influence, with the occasional assassination resulting, this too we’ve seen before, and better, and on television no less (the BBC production "I, Claudius" pretty much sets the standard). But Stone’s take is all so dreary and muddled that one can’t help thinking back, none too fondly, to similarly smudgy Stone efforts like "JFK," where what should be a straightforward storyline is hindered and obscured at every turn by unfocused writing and ham-handed direction.
As for the romantic part of it all… well, there’s already a flap brewing in Greece over Stone’s supposed acknowledgement of Alexander’s so-called bisexuality. In point of fact, Stone and Farrell present Alexander as being queer as a three-drachma ingot, but refuse to let the man do anything more with his beloved Hephaistion (Jared Leto) than give him an occasional bear hug and talk about how they are like Achilles and Patroklos (and we know how that turned out). We see Alexander being tempted by a lithe dancing boy in India; we see him give his eunich a come-hither look as he crawls in under an animal pelt; and, when Alexander finally embarks on a quest for an heir (with somewhat less success than he has in his military adventures) with his controversial non-Macedonian bride Roxan (Rosario Dawson), we are treated to the most disturbing and fey encounter between a man and a woman since that regrettable train ride in Ken Russell’s "The Music Lovers." We don’t really get a chance to see Alexander in love, because far from loving without reservation, the movie, and the characters in it, are full of reservations and doubts. Except for Roxan, of course, who, in a moment right out of a telenovela, walks in on Alexander and Hephaistion just as the boys are having a not-so-subtle moment: Hephaistion is slipping a ring onto Alexander’s wedding-band finger. And this is on Alexander and Roxan’s wedding night. You can see where Roxan might feel a tad put out.
Such keeings and preenings are the stuff of this film, unfortunately, and given the vast stretches of Alexander’s life that are glossed over (most everything that doesn’t qualify as the ancient world’s equivalent of "The O.C."), the only epic thing about it -- aside from its 182 minute running time -- is its lavish production. Visually, it’s a striking movie, especially when Stone gives us a pause from the endlessly lousy dialogue: Alexander takes an arrow in battle and the world turns a blood-red around him; old Ptolemy gazes in silent contemplation at the Alexandrian harbor, overseen by its famed lighthouse. For these moments the story seems to unspool itself in a gracious manner, untrampled and relieved, but they are scarce and fleeting moments.
Whatever its production values, in terms of story, action, and character, "Alexander" is so very overwrought that by the time our peroxided hero and his army find themselves slogging through the torrential rainfall of the Indian jungle, it’s even money as to whether the inclement conditions are the result of monsoon season or the unremitting humidity of the script. Five years from now we’ll probably look back on this project and ask the obvious question: wouldn’t someone like Pedro Almodovar have been a more fitting choice as director for a movie about a gay action hero?
By Killian Melloy
Reprinted from EDGEBoston.com
Copyright 2004 EDGE Publications, LLC
All Rights Reserved
Photo Source: Warner Brothers.
