Review of Alexander (1996) by Jeff M — 30 May 2010

The life of Alexander the Great, one of history's most fascinating people, is great material for a biopic/historical epic, Colin Farrell does a decent job of portraying the odd mix of strategic genius, visionary idealism, childish pique, and megalomania that defined the famous conqueror, and Angelina Jolie is kind of fun in a campy turn as his scheming mother Olympias.

It mostly looks great, too, with every penny of the film's $140 million budget visible in its massive, CGI-abetted battle scenes and ancient cityscapes. Unfortunately, the whole thing is still a bit of a mess.

Rosario Dawson is underutilized as one of the loves of Alexander's life and Jared Leto is inadequate as the other, the narrative is irritatingly and unnecessarily convoluted by continual flashbacks and a thoroughly pointless framing device featuring Anthony Hopkins as an aged Ptolemy relating the story of the king's life to an Egyptian scribe, and Oliver Stone's penchant for grandiosity and histrionic overdirection get the best of him toward the end.

A story of this scope requires discipline as well as vision to carry off, and for all his gifts the hyperactive Stone has never been particularly good at discipline. There's a fair amount of material worth watching here, but I couldn't help but think that a different director might have been able to better turn it into a great film rather than an intermittently interesting but ultimately disappointing one.