Alexander

Alexander - **

When you're Oliver Stone, making a film about the life of one of the world's greatest war heros is never simple. You're going to attempt to get past all of the stories told about your main character and attempt to tell a story that Hollywood hasn't yet done. You're also going to shed no expense at making the action scenes unadulterated. Of course, even if you're Oliver Stone, this can go either way, and unfortunately Alexander goes to the wrong way for nearly three hours. Colin Farrell stars in this historical epic as Alexander the Great (before he was "The Great", mind you), while Angelina Jolie plays his mother Olympias, Jared Leto plays his lover and friend Hephaistion, and Rosario Dawson plays Roxane, his wife. Anthony Hopkins does double duty as both narrator and the older version of Ptolemy. When you think of the influential historical figures who are mentioned in this film (among them Alexander, Olympias, Aristotle, Ptolemy and Antigonas), there is potential for unparallelled cinematic delight. However, in three hours the viewer leaves the theatre feeling no more enlightened than when they came in. Colin Farrell is good, but only good in the lead role, while Angelina Jolie turns in one of her worst performances yet. If I only listen to the film with my eyes closed, Alexander was actually Irish and Olympias was Romanian, but I'll let the accents slip because really, it's not like they were speaking any form of English anyway. The script is completely lost in favour of blunt violence, dull sex and nill characterization. You could say that the cast looked good, but of course they did, they're Angelina Jolie, Rosario Dawson, Jared Leto and Colin Farrell. If you could make a movie just by virtue of looks, you could stick Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears together and win Oscars. Unfortunately, "From Justin 2 Kelly" and "Crossroads" prove that wrong. Thumbs down.