great movie... although the story was really confusing... But at least it showed the reality of the Alexander the Great... The flaws he had as a human being... Weird... there was a touch of brokeback mt. in it... hehe
Really loved the themes this movie deals with. What prevents us from pursuing our highest ambitions? How much should we sacrifice for a shot at greatness? Watch if you care deeply about these questions.
A times flawed and very over-acted, which could of become both Colin Farrells oscar demanding performance and Oliver Stone's finest hour or three has just become a brutal, man on man and paranoid historical epic
I have the 300 dvd special edition with the 3 years worth of special stuff about the movie... Its overall great pic of Obsession and well if your not a HOMOPHOBE YOU WILL TRULY ENJOY IT...
It could have been better if Stone had made the movie more about the war than the sexuality of the Greeks. Yes, we know Alexander was mostly gay, so what? He conquered the world; show it.
Not a bad epic movie based on real events. Had some decent action scenes and good acting all around. I think this movie could have been better if made into a long TV/movie series. They could have told more of the story of Alexander.
(Director's Cut). not half as gay as Troy. Decent drama, pretty people, gritty battles, stirring speeches. theres worse things to do with 3 hours of your time.
Phony.It's probably the accurate word to characterize it.The hype went into smithereens.It's not a bad film but the mere qualities it possess are overshadowed by the pathetic,optical vision of Stone.Jolie can't act,Farrell is acting like a Dennis the Menace copycat,and let me not mention the withered-made fight scenes.It's no less worse than a Troy was,Greek history is devoured by Hollywood on both "epics".Pick the original Alexander by Rossen where politics/images are worth your precious time.
one of the worst epic movies to be to be released starring Angelina Jolie,Anthony Hopkins,Colin Farrell and also Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Alexander comes under the direction from the director of Comandante Oliver Stone.
Some battle scenes are quite impressive but beyond that you have to admit that the casting was poor (I love most of the actors but they just didn't fit in their roles) and the writers had nothing to say about Alexander. Stone should never leave the US-related subjects, plenty of directors could have shoot a film about Alexander, not that many could have done JFK, Nixon, Platoon, etc.
When Oliver Stone announces he's making another film, it's not so much a case of taking notice as taking cover. His is not the cinema of clinking teacups and subtle interplay; this is cinema as blitzkrieg: elemental, outrageous and barely tamed. And when Oliver Stone announces he's making a film of the life of Alexander The Great, the Macedonian king who trampled over half the known world, by Zeus, you'd better be prepared. Alexander looks and sounds glorious, depicting a far-off world spread with intricate detail and expansively scored by the aural grandeur of Vangelis. The battle scenes extraordinarily reconstruct the horror of war in a time when seeing the whites of your enemy's eyes was a tactical necessity. If Troy was tame and bloodless, Alexander is wild and drenched in carnal violence.
It takes three tours of duty in Vietnam to understand such visceral madness, and Stone takes his camera tight into Alexander's demented eyeballs before pulling back and letting the blood spill. In what must be the most monumental scene of any career, described in arch slow-motion from about 62 camera angles, Alexander on his faithful steed rears up before a similarly rearing armoured elephant. It's a tremendous surge of purest spectacle; the film never feels so alive as when it's immersed in death.
And yet! And yet! This is no Spartacus, or even a Braveheart. Stone's determination to bang home big themes, crackling with Freudianism, unsettles his storytelling. There's something overbearing, almost bullying, about this abbreviated tour through a decade-long campaign, pinpointing loud, emotional moments rather than dramatically satisfying ones.
The first hour is spent prying on the younger Alexander's fractious relations with his demented parents, the psychological fuel to his all-conquering mania. With hints of incest or worse, Jolie joyously chews it all up and spits it out with sexy vigour - it appears her son may have swallowed up nations just to shut his mother up.
Just as in JFK or Nixon, Stone once again ponders the blurring of history and myth. The story is weaved in flashback by Hopkins' elderly Ptolemy, who judges the frailties of the real man before carefully omitting such details from the record. These, though, are truths still hotly disputed, so the script keeps fretfully explaining itself. Alexander's bisexuality, for example, is dealt with maturely, but repeatedly.
It's convienient to note the parallels between the director's over-ambition and that of his subject, but the comparison fits. Stone pushes too far just as Alexander did, aiming to give us a leader of contradictions: tyrant and diplomat, lover and killer, god and man. Poor Colin Farrell is presented with having to turn a marble icon into a fleshy sprawl of personal issues. You can feel him strain every sinew to get it right, but with his blond locks out of whack with his heavy stubble and his Dublin accent awkwardly unchanged, he is too earthy, that one-of-the-boys persona unshakeable. Where is that spark of glory that drove men 10,000 miles from home? Where is the colossus? Yes, this is a movie of spectacularly brutal battle scenes and intense attention to detail, but, as wowed as you are, you come away never truly tasting the immensity of Alexander.
I watched the Director's Cut (Alexander Revisited) and found it quite spectacular. This movie shows the brilliant Alexander from triumph to decline. I was able to get over Collin Farrell looking like a blond doofus and ended up finding him quite a convincing Alexander. I couldn't recognise Val Kilmer as Philip. The entire cast is superb and quite good-looking. It was nice seeing the male cast members, especially Jared Leto, wearing eyeliner. Jared Leto looks reallyl creepy in a certain part of this movie. Angelina Jolie is the best at yelling a heartbroken no. The plot gets better and better as the long movie goes on. Alexander is portrayed as loving, moral, inspirational to his troops, and a military genius. No one fought harder than Alexander in this movie. The queens, Olympias and Roxane, are the wisest of all the characters. Hephaistion is very endearing as a loyal, loving, forgiving, and wise companion of Alexander. The film's historical references were satisfying. I like how Alexander's army eventually interacted with monkeys as if they were men. I was quite glad that the ancient Greeks and Macedonians' bisexualism was shown in this movie. There are some good lines in the script. The movie's better when you watch it the second time around because you notice more and it makes more sense then. You get absorbed into the movie. I really ended up yelling at some of the characters somehow wishing I could yell some smarts into them. What I don't get is why Alexander ends up charging alone in the last battle. Perhaps it was symbolic. This movie is artistic; some shots are cleverly filmed. This movie makes me marvel at what humans can accomplish.
I HATED THIS FILM. The WORST epic movie they have made. This was BORING. A huge historic-war-figure movie that was BORING. The acting sucked, VERY surprisingly. THIS MOVIE WAS EPIC FAIL. DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE.
Disappointing. The fighting scenes were disorganized and unfocused. Alexander was made to look weak in the eyes of his troops and enemies. A different director would have made this epic movie into a masterpiece blockbuster (ex: Gladiator, Ben-Hur, Ten Commandments, Troy, Cleopatra, 300).
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