Review of Alexander (1996) by Ben S — 06 Aug 2012

On paper this film looks as if it has a lot to offer but in reality this is not really the case. The things it has going for it are the cast which comprises of three or four very well known actors/actresses (such as Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie), the quality of the film which shows with the costumes and the locations of the film, the good CGI and the huge set piece battles with thousands of people fighting at the same time. However despite these things there are numerous things that let the film down. Firstly the film is far too long considering how slow the film is, being 2 hours and 40 minutes long. Secondly most of the actors who play Greeks have Irish accents which seems a bit strange considering the Greeks never even knew Ireland existed. Thirdly there are only two big battles in the film with one at the beginning and one at the end and considering Alexander is remembered mainly for his battles it seems a bit odd to only add two of them in the film. Fourthly the story is just a bit boring with most of the middle of the film comprising of things that do not contribute to the story and did not really need to be added. And finaly the film does a lot of jumping backwards and forwards in time, each time showing you a different part of Alexander's life and this can get quite confusing as it happens so frequently. To conclude this film had the potential to be good but was not executed particularly well which resulted in many flaws. I have been told that the original one was much better and so I would only suggest watching this film to people who are interested in this era. To anyone else I would probably say this film is not worth watching (the only reason I gave it 3 stars is becuase the battles were very epic, without them I would have given it a lower rating).

Written on 30/07/12.