IRREVERENT Magazine - Movie Reviews

Alexander wanders around a landscape of beautiful digital reconstructions of more-or-less early Greek civilization for a nearly three hour examination of why great people strive to do great things when everyone around them, for the most part, just want to go home and play with the kids. Along the way is a very strange exploration of homosexuality, elite familial loyalties, and motherly domination, provided by, quizzically Angelina Jolie. Jolie, whose role in the film is to play the enchanting mother-witch bent on furthering her son's political career, gives a very odd performance which never really makes sense. On the one hand, she's a fiery prognosticating witch, ala Shakespeare's Macbeth: on the other, she's a dominating mother, a liar who cares only for herself, yet sacrifices everything for her offspring. Her ambiguity may be deliberate, but caught up in the half-imagined history of 350 B.C. ultimately turns out confused and boring.

Did I say boring? Alexander is as a whole, perhaps, but not for lack of character insight or drama: here the problems are story and form. We do fifteen minutes in the present, then back 10 years in the past for a moment's revelation which ends up explaining little. Then another half-hour in the past, only to be fast-forwarded to the present, where Alexander is already a successful conqueror. Gone is the development of Alexander from boy to emperor: gone is the acquisition of experience along the way. Instead we are cut right to the chase, wondering why we are there, and having no idea how we got there.

What would have remained interesting in this genre, the massive battle sequences, are too seemingly hurried, badly cut and confused, leaving us wondering what the hell's going on. In one pivotal battle, for example, against the Persian king Darius, Alexander seemingly orders a "surprise attack" on Darius himself, while one of Alexander's generals attacks Darius' left to "keep him occupied." There is a big argument over this tactic, for some reason that's never really made clear, but by sheer screen time we're led to believe this will become a pretty significant tactic. By the time the camera's rolling, however, we soon loose track of all our bearings. Which is left, which right? Oh wait: here's Alexander on his horse! Ah-ha, so he's sneaking up on Darius somehow. Where's the general leading the left attack? Ahh, I can't see him anywhere! Er... now Alexander's riding behind his own infantry front line... okay, so where's he going?.... AH! Now here's jump cut of Darius! Oh boy, you're in trouble now, bub! But now Alexander's somewhere... else, I think, no wait. Someone betrayed him, who??! Who's he fighting now? Where the hell's the rest of his cavalry? He's still behind his infantry?! Oh forget it.

In fact, this bothered me so much, I actually looked up who the DP was for Braveheart, which had quite excellent huge battle scenes, and who directed Alexander's photography. It turns out Rodrigo Prieto handled Alexander, and later did Brokeback Mountain (2005), which didn't really surprise me given all the homoerotic overtones in this flick, and John Toll did Braveheart, as well as excellent work in The Last Samurai (2003), which also didn't surprise me. Ollie, you should'a gave John a buzz.

All in all, Alexander is not a terrible movie by any stretch, perhaps only a let-down because I expect a lot from a guy like Oliver Stone. It is, however, a confusing tale which seeks to tell a story that I'm not sure it knows how to tell, stuck somewhere between a sorta historical epic (ala Troy) and speculative biography (ala Nixon). But it never really makes up its mind, and in the end, you're left more or less bored and confused.