Ever since the massive kudos Gladiator received in 2000, the big Hollywood studios have tried to equal or exceed its success. This year alone, several big historical blockbusters hit the screen, most of them, like Troy and King Arthur, with limited or no quality. Oliver Stone saw one of his long lasting wishes to direct a historical film granted, with the project of Alexander, based on the life and conquests of Macedonian king Alexander the Great. During the production phase there was some competition by Baz Luhrmann, who was planning to give his vision on the exact same subject. Luhrmann’s project, however, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman was postponed and recently Stone’s Alexander was crushed into the ground in the first American reviews at the end of November.

It is hard going to see a movie when you’re already slightly prejudiced on entering the cinema. That certainly does Alexander no justice. Stone does, in fact, take his time to tell the story. Obviously, American audiences were expecting to see nothing but battles, and may have left their chairs more than slightly disappointed. The film starts with the Old Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins), now pharaoh of Egypt, recalling his time with Alexander after which we are introduced to Alexander as a child. After his father dies, Alexander takes over his job to conquer the East.

Stone has a good eye for historical drama and obviously wants to tell this very rich, broad story correctly. An eminent problem with most historical pictures also arises with this one; namely many of the characters drowning themselves in their pompous dialogues. There is no way people actually spoke like that two thousand years ago. Stone also wants to bring in too much psychological background, including Alexander’s relationship with his mother (a rather unconvincing Angelina Jolie) and his tyrannical father (Val Kilmer), the lack of faith of his troops and the treason within them. There is, however, much eye for visual detail, demonstrated in the extravagant costumes, sets and locations.

The ambivalence of Alexander lies within the combination of drama and action. The drama is largely over the top and sentimental; the action scenes are pretty impressive (especially the first big scene in the Persian desert which definitely proves Alexander is much better than Troy), but there are too few of them. The film drags itself from an occasional action sequence to another, but is too slow inbetween. It is a relief, though, that Stone doesn’t try to sweeten Alexander’s cruel and massive conquests, as for instance the theatrical cut of King Arthur did.

In the level of drama Stone restrains himself, since he could have hinted a little bit more explicitly at the rather unusual friendship between Alexander and Hephastion (Jared Leto), that, we now know, was also a sexual one. Stone is not afraid to shock, but this seemed to be a bridge too far and we don’t get much further than some suggestion and ambiguous talks between the two.

The story of Alexander the Great is a long one, especially if you consider how much he achieved in his relatively short life and Stone should have either cut the whole thing into two parts, or kept the dialogue shorter. Colin Farrell as the title character delivers a decent performance, but his acting doesn’t exactly leave you awe-struck.

It takes a while to really get into the movie and if battles are all you are after, stay home. Stone’s latest definitely has its slow moments (especially Hopkins’ long, boring speeches) and clocks approximately three hours, which is way to long for any audience’s attention span. There are too few action scenes to keep up the suspense throughout, but the ones we do get to see are raw, realistic and rather enjoyable.

In short: don’t believe what the critics tell you, go see it yourself. Really, it is not that bad, just a little unbalanced and half an hour too long. Somehow you’d expect more from Oliver Stone, though.

Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Collin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Hopkins
Runtime: 173′
Release Dates: US: 24 November, UK: 7 Januari (2005), The Netherlands: 23 December
Official Website

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