Stream it now Alexander 2004

 

** (out of four)

A missed opportunity here by director Oliver Stone. He had the opportunity to tell the fascinating story of one of the most interesting and complex men in history. Instead he gave us a bloated, overlong, and mostly unexciting history lesson that fails to capture the essence of its lead character.

Colin Farrell is fairly well cast as Alexander the Great, the now mythic figure who was leader of Persia. He crossed the lands concquering as he went. He was on his way to ruling a huge chunk of the world.

One of the wost films...might as well just read the synopsis...

Alexander packed some unimaginable conquests into his limited years by ruling over a huge chunk of the globe. Stone draws on a voice-over narration provided by Anthony Hopkins, whose character is named Ptolemy, to aurally depict some of the battles.

Stone shifts the weight of the film to focus on the personality of Alexander (Colin Farrell), a man who is stricken by overwhelming personal insecurities that come in direct contrast to his bold achievements. Complex dealings with his mother Olympias(Angelina Jolie) and father Philip II (Val Kilmer) plague him, as does his turbulent relationship with his wife, Roxane (Rosario Dawson). His connection with his best friend, Hephaestion (Jared Leto), is ambiguous, with Stone touching on their vaunted sexuality.

Their affection for each other is very murky indeed.

As these personal battles are played out, Ptolemy fills the historic gaps in the narrative by charting the incredible conflicts that raged at Alexander's behest.

Watching Stone's film feels like watching the Wall Street channel, a very long and boring adventure about a tyrant army general ready to act just as crazy as Coppola was in the making of Apocalypse Now.

Eventually, Stone lets loose with an epic on-screen battle, which sees Alexander's troops rumble across India in another country-conquering quest. But while his minions struggle, and Alexander demands success, it becomes clear that he is his own worst enemy.

Yes he is and so was the rest of the production.
With the only real threat to Alexander coming from a tempestuous struggle with his own ego, Stone's summation of the great historical leader paints a picture of an embittered and solitary figure who was able to rule everyone apart from himself.

Terrible ragged narrrative structure, Colin Ferrell looks to uncomfortable as the military leader, and the film lacks vision, depth, and scope. Just well enough to qualify for a green.

This was one of the worst movies ever made. Period.

This is a completely underrated movie in my opinion. The only version I've seen is the 214 minute final cut and I was very impressed. Great acting, epic bloody battles and visually dazzling. Could have cut about twenty minutes of dialogue, other than that, spectacular epic.

Alexander is a moving that is meant to be about Alexander the Great and it is far from Great it borders on absolute rubbish and horrible.

I like Oliver Stone, he has directed some of my favourite movies, but this is so unlike him and he would do better taking it off his list of movies. With weird transitions between scenes and a film that jumpes back and forward with no real purpose it is totally unusual.

The casting was extremely bad as well, Colin Farrell should never be allowed to come near an Epic/History movie again. He was completely out of place and he looked like he was trying way to hard in his preformance. This is the same for Angelina Jolie, she looks confused with her role and so brings out a bad preformance. The only one that sheds any light is Val Kilmer but unfortunately for him, his preformance is overshadowed by how bad everyone else is.

Alexander is way to long ... 3 hours and the majority is dialogue, I don't think Taratino could even accomplish that feat.

Really don't waste your time, it was incredibly bad with really no hightlights, I can't even think of one thing that I enjoyed or stuck in my mind!

5% - Horrible Movie ... Waste of Time, only gets 5% for the big hype.

This one is not that bad, but is not satisfacing neither. 5/10 'cose Im generous ;)

what. was that.

This should of been a great film - an epic. Unfortunately is misses out big time - You feel like you are almost watching a spoof movie and constantly waiting for the gag or punchline. Terrible performances.

The acting is not that good, the movie is too long and the battle scenes are very weak, but I think that historicaly it captures some of Alexander

I know people talk about Broke Back Mountain being gay, but this really is the gayest movie ever made. And there is absolutely no reason for it. Whoever produced this was retarded. Imagine the pitch: I want to make a historical action movie. Lots of big budget battles, light on intelligent plot, full of holes. The kind of thing that appeals to complete idiots. But, here's the catch: I work in lots of really gay scenes. I'm sure that will attract all of the action lovers. My roommate freshman year owned it, and it made me very suspicious of him. (Not his sexual orientation, just his worth as a human being)