Alexander with Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie Val Kilmer and Anthony Hopkins
Synopsis of the DVD Movie: Alexander with Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie Val Kilmer and Anthony Hopkins
Oliver Stone's "Alexander" is based on the true story of one of history's most luminous and influential leaders, Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell), a man who had conquered 90% of the known world by the age of 25. Alexander led his virtually invincible Greek, Macedonian, and later Eastern armies through 22,000 miles of sieges and conquests in just eight years, and by the time of his death at the age of 32, had forged an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. The film chronicles Alexander's path to becoming a living legend, from a youth fueled by dreams of myth, glory and adventure to his lonely and mysterious death as ruler of a vast Empire.
Warner Bros. Pictures and Intermedia Films present a Moritz Borman production in association with IMF, an Oliver Stone film, "Alexander." Directed by Oliver Stone, "Alexander" stars Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer and Anthony Hopkins. The film is produced by Thomas Schuhly, Jon Kilik, Iain Smith and Moritz Borman. The executive producers are Paul Rassam and Matthias Deyle. The co-executive producers are Gianni Nunnari and Fernando Sulichin. Written by Oliver Stone and Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis. The director of photography is Rodrigo Prieto; Jan Roelfs serves as production designer; the film is edited by Tom Nordberg, Yann Herve and Alex Marquez; costumes by Jenny Beavan; Vangelis serves as composer.
DVD Movie Rating for: Alexander
Rating for Alexander: 5 out of 5 stars
Movie Plot of: Alexander
In the film, Alexander (Colin Farrell), the bastard son of Philip of Macedonia (Val Kilmer), becomes king of the known world by age 25. Starting in Greece, the insatiable scourge moves his devoted army east, swallowing up new lands and cultures like Fear Factor contestants swallow cow eyeballs. Rarely satisfied by combat or carnal knowledge, Alexander splits his devotions between an Asian wife (a surprisingly lifeless Rosario Dawson) and his male lover Hephaestion (a not-so-surprisingly lifeless Jared Leto). Meanwhile, back home in Macedonia, Alexander's mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie) begs like a leech to be part of her son's growing kingdom.
By chronicling the Greek ruler's military training and gradual empire spreading through Asia, Stone's Alexander can be exotic, erotic, and elongated past the point of consideration. Blood flows (and flows) but the proceedings are far from memorable. Everything simply seems big, from Stone's grandiose set pieces to the elaborate but poorly executed battle sequences. Even the ample score by a pulled-back-into-the-limelight Vangelis (Blade Runner), suggests a grandeur this film hardly ever earns. It's a big misfire, a big bore, and a big fat waste of time.
Beyond the desire to recreate history, Stone frequently has been attracted to power figures who ascend to their thrones rather quickly, then fight to maintain their positions. Alexander is no different, and like Stone's stabs at American history (JFK, Nixon), the director's passion for his subject gives way to dramatic excess, leading to overwrought pomp crushed by its own weight and lack of accomplishment.
Alexander's humanitarian efforts (connect the lands to benefit the people) are lost in Stone's portrayal of ruler-as-rock star. Which, of course, make Farrell a great choice to play the lead. The actor's own ego-fueled swagger actually helps his Alexander. We believe he's passionate enough to inspire an army, and he's a natural when it comes to enjoying the spoils of victory. Stone's costume designer eventually lets Farrell down, though, as Alexander evolves into a drunken Jeff Spicoli in India, then morphs into a feather-coifed Sebastian Bach from Skid Row by the time he returns to Babylon.
Stone's supporting cast, though, desperately tries to match the director's vast vision with bombastic bouts of overacting. Kilmer, with his eye sealed shut, channels the late Jim Morrison as if he were still playing the Lizard King on the set of Stone's The Doors. Jolie goes so far beyond vamp that she reaches vampire, soaking every line with a Transylvanian accent. It's laughable. A friend asked me on the way out to name Stone's last good film. I couldn't. If Alexander signals the end for the once-maverick filmmaker, at least he went out with a bang.
DVD Production Details of: Alexander
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Cast of the movie: Alexander
- Colin Farrell .... Alexander
- Angelina Jolie .... Olympias
- Val Kilmer .... Philip
- Anthony Hopkins .... Ptolemy
- Jared Leto .... Hephaestion
- Rosario Dawson .... Roxanne
- Gary Stretch .... Cleitus
- Jonathan Rhys-Meyers .... Cassander
- Marta Baronha .... Bagoas dancer
- Ian Beattie .... Antigonus
- David Bedella
- Brian Blessed .... Leonidas
- Francisco Bosch .... Bagoas
- Suzanne Bullock .... Roxane dancer
- Bin Bunluerit .... Poros, King of India
- Elliot Cowan .... Young Ptolemy
- Raz Degan .... Darius III, Shah of Persia
- Michael Dixon .... Dimnus
- Kate Eloise .... Roxane dancer
- Gillian Grueber .... Roxane dancer
- Paul Hornsby .... Machatus
- Neil Jackson .... Perdiccas
- Antoine Kurt .... Bagoas dancer
- David Leon
- Garrett Lombard .... General Leonnatus
- Michelle Lukes .... Roxane dancer
- Laird Macintosh .... Neoptolomus
- Evelina Carmela Manna .... Barsine
- Erik Markus Schuetz .... Warrior
- Benny Maslov .... Bagoas dancer
- Tania Matos .... Bagoas dancer
- Rory McCann .... Crateros
- Anjali Mehra .... Roxane dancer
- Joseph Morgan .... Philotas
- Leighton Morrison .... Bagoas dancer
- Isaac Mullins .... Bagoas dancer
- Jaran Ngamdee .... Indian Prince
- Connor Paolo .... Young Alexander
- Monica Perego .... Bagoas dancer
- Christopher Plummer .... Aristotle
- Matthew Powell .... Bagoas dancer
- Peter Rnic .... Greek Nobleman
- Erol Sander .... Prince Pharnakes
- Ulla van Zeller .... Thais, ptolemys' wife
- Monica Zamora .... Bagoas dancer
Photo Gallery of the movie: Alexander
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Reviews of the movie: Alexander
Colin Farrell, who plays Alexander (with a blond dye-job), is 28 years old; Angelina Jolie, who plays his mother, Olympias, is 29. Olympias has a thing for snakes - she purrs through the movie with vipers thrown over her shoulder or wrapped around her leg or just left lying all a-squirm on the floor of her palace boudoir. Why? Dunno. She also speaks in some sort of indeterminate Carpathian accent, for reasons that eluded me, if they even exist.
The movie is narrated - and narrated and narrated - by Alexander's boyhood friend, Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins). At a point many years after Alexander's death, we see Ptolemy, now old and tiresome, doddering about his palace recounting the Great's many exploits and trying to shovel in as much ancient historical context as possible, in vain hope of giving the audience some faint idea of what's going on. His incessant drone, clotted with phrases like "the loins of war," is the picture's overriding annoyance. Although you do kind of chuckle when he lets rip with, "It is said that Alexander was never defeated, except by Hephaistion's thighs." Hephaistion is another of Alexander's childhood chums, although in this case, one with whom he has a sexual relationship. We're not about to actually see them having sex, of course - not in a $150 million Hollywood movie - so we're treated instead to many sultry looks and steamy comments, all of them hilarious. ("You have eyes like no other," Hephaistion murmurs at one point.)
The director appears to be aiming for a tone of bold homoeroticism - who knew that ancient armies traveled with contingents of simpering (it's the only word) young sex slaves, and that these ill-used boys apparently pioneered the art of mascara-application? But since Stone has no knack for eroticism of any sort, the result is a procession of increasingly silly scenes. For example, after Alexander marries a woman named Roxane (played by Rosario Dawson, lumbered with another vaguely "foreign" accent), she catches him in their bedroom trading smoldery confidences with Hephaistion. "You luff heem?" she asks, with understandable pique. "There are many different ways to love," Alexander replies suavely, as Roxane backs away, possibly not wanting to see any of them demonstrated. (Dawson later features nakedly in the movie's only unabashedly heterosexual interlude.) There are two big, expensively staged battles in "Alexander," but their action is exclusively a function of blurry camera work and whip-bang editing; they're otherwise incoherent. Somebody shouts "Prepare to repel chariots!" Then there's a bunch of leaping and grunting and clanging. Then Alexander, riding ahead of his men into battle, yells over his shoulder, "Left turn!" And then ... no, I can't go on. Or wait, yes I can: The soundtrack score of this movie, by the Greek synth virtuoso Vangelis, is an abomination in itself, an ugly mush of oozing string washes, pounding tympanis, swooning chorales and tiny tinkling chimes. There's no one up on the screen at any point suffering as much abuse as the audience that's forced to endure this aural assault.
Colin Farrell is a good actor, and his career will survive this movie. So will Angelina Jolie's. And of course Anthony Hopkins, having previously lent his presence to the execrable "Hannibal," obviously has no deeply held concerns about his own professional future. But Oliver Stone hasn't directed a movie that anyone took seriously since the 1994 "Natural Born Killers" (and why anybody did take that film seriously remains a mystery). To say that his career was in disarray before "Alexander" is an understatement. To say that it's in trouble now is unavoidable.
Oliver Stone, that hysterical historian of the paranoid 20th century, returns with his first costume epic. For "Alexander" he travels back to 300 B.C., and the result is a colossal disaster that might well be Oliver Stone's own personal Watergate.
To break it down, Oliver Stone's dreadfully dull epic consists of about 10 percent battle scenes and 90 percent dialogue. The battle scenes jump and rattle around, making little sense. Oliver Stone has failed to clearly capture chaos and instead has chaotically filmed a mess. After one battle, it's up to the narrator to inform us what has happened because the scene itself has completely failed.
Very often Alexander the Great (played by Colin Farrell, who died his hair blond but kept his Irish accent) will mount a hilltop and explain to his troops what has just happened, how tough the battle was, and where they're going next. It's like being in school, pinned down by a monotone teacher.
The musical score, by Vangelis, rises and thunders behind him as if to illustrate how dramatic it all is. Sometimes the music literally drowns out the dialogue, which is probably a good thing.
It's possible that the most optimistic viewers will find camp value from among the film's rubble. Angelina Jolie plays Alexander's mother Olympias, and she's magnificent in the way that Ricardo Montalban was in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." She purrs and snarls through a wild, rolling accent and is constantly covered with live snakes.
The film also has an obvious, but very tame, gay subtext. Alexander often exchanges smoldering glances with the prettiest of his men, Hephaistion (Jared Leto), and they sequester themselves in bedrooms and tents, vowing that they'll never leave each other. Sometimes they even hug!
At the same time, Alexander marries a Persian princess (Rosario Dawson) and the movie dishes out one of its biggest laughs as she enters a room and spies Hephaistion giving a fancy ring to Alexander. "Are you weeth heem?" she attempts a crazed accent before getting down to a hilarious lovemaking scene in which the participants roar at each other like playground lions.
Perhaps the movie is best summed up by one of its own lines. In an attempt to reveal a kind of ancient conspiracy theory, our narrator, the aged Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins), suggests that Alexander's own men killed him, then retracts the statement with: "Throw all that away -- it's an old fool's rubbish."
