Review of Alexander (2004) by Lex K — 18 Jun 2009

Oliver Stone is a terrific director, and it's a shame to see him create such a bad and uninteresting film as this. First the good: Colin Farrell is ok as the title character, and Anthony Hopkins is as good as he always is as the narrator-type role.

But it's Val Kilmer who provides the best performance- but his screen time is extremely short and it's very disapppinting to not have more of him. He's absolutely terric in this. For the remaining 2 and half friggin hours, we are "treated" to long, drawn out action sequences (which are boring and stupid), campy and surprisingly bad sex scenes, horrific dialogue, and unconvincing romances.

Supposedly, Alexander is bisexual, but he seems to resent both sides of his sexuality. His "love" for his male friend/lover Jared Leto is boring and not fleshed out at all, and poor Rosario Dawson has little to do other than taking her clothes off.

Add the fact that the movie feels obligated to stretch the story and runtime to an eternity and you have a recipe for cinematic shit. I'm willing to forgive Stone for this one, because he's done much much much better ("Natural Born Killers," "Platoon").

"Alexander" sucks.