|
Directed by: Oliver Stone Starring: Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Anthony Hopkins I went into this movie expecting big things, and I was sorely disappointed. Colin Farrell just did not fit the part for me. I thought that he was horrible as the lead. I couldn't get myself involved in the movie no matter how hard I tried. For most of the movie, I was not drawn into the film, but felt like I was viewing some sort of quasi-documentary. Every so often, a voiceover from the narrator would come and talk about the story, and this completely ruined the film for me. Besides that, the pacing was really, really, really slow. It's not one of those movies that will captivate your attention if you have a short attention span or are easily distracted. This movie takes a lot of dedication since it's not really actiony, but more of an epic drama. Still, the movie went by way too slowly and there were very many dead parts. Another big problem I had with the film was all the gayness that was in it. I'm not trying to be funny, but there were many scenes in the movie that were just really gay. Literally. And there were other scenes that were just ridiculous in the sense that Stone just overdid the scene to an extreme where it just became ridiculous. Besides the piss-poor acting by Farrell, I thought that Angelina Jolie was excellent. There's not really much more to say. If you're a dedicated film buff and like to watch slow developing stories with a large, large epic story, this is for you. But if you want to go to be captivated and enjoy yourself, I think that this will fail for most of you. Rating: 2/5 RATING: 2 PROS: Angelina Jolie, scenery, environment CONS: Pacing, story, plot ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346491/
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2004 07:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 20:46 |
|
|
edit: sorry, wrong forum. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2004 09:51
|
|
|
Posted over from the duplicate thread:quote:Yawgmoft came out of the closet to say: quote:Straws came out of the closet to say:
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2004 00:16
|
|
|
On a scale of 0 to Pearl Harbor, I give this movie an 11. It felt like I was taking a standardized test where the answer to the 1 question exam was "Alexander" and I wasn't allowed to leave early. People in the audience were laughing during scenes of what was meant to be extraordinary emotion. The battle scenes were filmed from a camera duct taped to the back of a rabid donkey. Close-ups on the faces during "confrontation" scenes left you wondering what pore treatment they use. And the plot, well, its not too hard to follow, but keep in mind it has a FULL HOUSE level of hugging involved. Didn't win the battle? Aww, well you can be sure Hephaistion, (Jared Leto) who is also your secret boyfriend, will reach his arms around you. And Angelina Jolie, Alexander's mother - my lord, her accent was a combination of Staten Island and Moscow. And her acting isn't even worthy of me finishing the end of this paragra Nevertheless, this did include the first bisexual lead in one of these over-the-top (which is a movie 100 times better than this one) productions where the budget calls for less than .01 percent actually going to having the film make sense. My ticket was free and I still asked for a refund. Take your ten dollars, rent a gun and buy some bullets, because this movie will do the same thing to you, only the pain lasts over the course of 3 seemingly infinite hours. 1 out of 5 (simply for the boob scene of Rosario Dawson)
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2004 05:10
|
|
|
This movie made me laugh
2FingersToGlory fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Apr 11, 2011 |
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2004 21:01
|
|
|
The day before watching Alexander I watched a special on Alexander on the Discovery Channel. The shaudy little cable biography was, by my standards, five hundred times better than Alexander. The battles are laughable at best. If you squint really hard you may occasionaly make out someone being stabbed, but don't get your hopes up. This gets even worse when you consider how awesome some of these fights could be. Alexander's camera work made my eyes hurt, the poorly done mass armies were better done in LoTR, and the rampant homosexuality made me believe I had stumbled upon a Gay Pride Party. I know that man on 'pretty man' love may have been common in those times, but do we really need three hours of men professing their love for each other? Then again if I had to live in a movie where you had to beat the poo poo out of a woman to get her to put out I might go gay too.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2004 02:11
|
|
|
The first battle was quite good, and at that point in the movie, the overbearing homosexual overtones weren't bad enough to cause one to lose faith in the movie, though you did have to stomach the strange 3 year gap in time where Alexander is exiled.... and then fighting for his father with a massive army of the people he was just exiled from. That really bothered me, especially when they went back and filled that part in an hour later, with no real lead in for it to make sense in that context. The strangest part of this movie is what Stone chose to show us of Alexander and his motives. We are, apparently, supposed to believe that he did all that he did because of a weird Oedipal complex, which, quite frankly, is understandable when your mother is Angelina Jolie, but in this case, it didn't really fit. There is also, of course, the gayness. Now, I've got nothing against homosexuality, I know that Alexander the Great, Achilles, and a lot of other prominant Greeks probably did crave the cock, but this movie may as well be an episode of Will and Grace. Alexander's gayness is rammed down the audiences's throat harder and more often than Hephaestion's cock down Alexander's throat. Seriously, it's way, way overdone. The filming, ignoring the total waste of film that is shakey-cam, was often outright cliche, and often very clumsy, especially during "emotional" moments. Characters looked like they were perpetually about to kiss, which, given the way overdone Freudian and homosexual themes, may have been intentional, if uncomfortable. edit: The accents, how could I forget. Jolie sounded like a Russian, and everyone else was Irish, for some reason. I've really always thought the directorial technique of using Irish/English accents a bit insulting; it doesn't give some kind of foreign feel to movies where people should be speaking an entirely different language, it just makes it that much dumber. 1/5: I want my $6 and 3 hours back. IRQ fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Nov 25, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2004 03:51
|
|
|
No review AND spoilers in your one sentance "review"? Magical.
Somebody fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Nov 29, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2004 06:21
|
|
|
This movie was a disappointment on a lot of levels. I couldn't decide who would like it more, Karl Rove or Richard Simmons. If you looked at it in comparison to modern day politics, you could compare it to some kind of neo-con agenda. "Oh we must free the Arabs so that they will have freedom!! Freedom is great! (Make some weird parallel to Bush)". It almost seemed like they were trying to make a statement on modern conflicts in the Middle East. Then on the other side of things there was a lot of man love. The story as a whole was pretty drawn out and didn't really seem to have any specific point to it. The beginning was quite slow and boring and I didn't really feel connected to the characters throughout the 3 hours. There were only two battle scenes that I recall and I would have rather been at home playing Rome Total War. I am not sure but I think they really botched their Phalanx formations. Anyway I gave this a 2. I was looking forward to it but it pretty much blew. Subotai fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Nov 25, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2004 07:23
|
|
|
I did not think this movie was as bad as a lot of people here are portraying it as. Then again, I'm a history buff. Its a long movie, and goes very much into detail. There are 2 battles, but they're not quick. The're long and :k-rad: battles. The movie entertained me. It was sort of like watching a superlong History Channel presentation that had actors. Babylon was amazing visually, and again, the battles are beyond awesome. However, it does go into the details of Alexanders life, which includes homosexuality. If you're sqeamish of that sort of stuff, dont go. It entertained me. ---------------- Sparta fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Nov 25, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2004 09:14
|
|
|
Visually, I thought the Hundi Kusch mountains were far more interesting. As far as the gayness goes, like I said, I have no problem with being gay, but Stone beat it into the ground with the erect gay penis of a dead horse of ultra-gayness. He overdid it, that cannot be denied.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2004 09:22
|
|
|
I didn't catch his lovely post in time, and now some other idiot responded to his question. I can only blame myself, really.
Somebody fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Nov 29, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2004 12:54
|
|
|
I saw this last night and left the theater simply drunkenly mumbling to myself about how bad it was. I was really really excited about this film... not because I expected it to be good, but rather because I'm a large fan of ancient greek literature. I'd also recently finished watching Peter Chung's version of it (Reign) which while not too hot itself, left me very interested in seeing a live action rendition of Alexander. Ugh this movie sucked. Angelina's accident was loving ridiculous... it sounded completely russian or something.... haha, actually, it sounded like what an ex-girlfriend of mine would do when she pretended to be a dominatrix. god, it was bad. she captured a small bit of the insaneness I am to understand her character contained, but jesus christ did she profane the name of Dionysus. I didn't have so much of a problem with the lead role's casting... not really what I would have wanted, but it was alright.... The massive battle that was Alexander's march into Persia / Egypt and the establishment of the first Alexandria was COMPLETELY skipped, and was quite frankly what I was expecting the whole film to be about. dunno if this is a spoiler, but Instead, we have some lovely opening material, and then a jump to Alexander conquering random indian tribes and fiddle faddling around with a wife. Needless to say, the poo poo is dull, and there is not a single good battle scene. Forget the battle scenes of Troy, which I actually found quite interesting at points, this, as someone said, was a loving donkey with a camera (with a close up lense no less) strapped to it's back, and poked with a hot iron. Nothing was discernable. after the movie ended, I was pretty unsatisfied with the experience. Aristotle was shown for all of one scene, there were few battles, and the ones that got any time spent on them sucked, alot of the acting was bad, most of what I think was interesting about Alexander's life was skipped, and etc etc. ahaheh the trippy scene at the end was pretty accurately trippy though tcc shoutz edit - I was pretty disturbed by the amount of people laughing at the "gay" scenes though. I personally didn't think they were overdone at all... I don't think they ever even kissed, and as far as ancient greek society goes, I'm sure they were relatively accurate. Our society has alot of growing up to do.... 2/5 mindphlux fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Nov 26, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2004 20:28
|
|
|
I didn't really expect much from this, my highest hope was that it for not to suck. Oh well. The performance from all the actors were at best, bland. Colin Farell didn't come close to possess all that charisma that Alexander portrayed in this movie allegedly had. Angelina delivered something really goofy, which was unappropriate. Even Anthony Hopkins fell flat as the narrator. But maybe the script is to blame. The dialoge was ridiculous. They just talked and talked, and refused to stop, and in this movie, that was very bad. Long and crappy monologues also filled this movie to the brim. The first battle was really good though. Nice usage of the music there, too bad it was used badly everywhere else. 1.5/5 PerOlus fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Nov 26, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2004 00:15
|
|
|
Pretty much, all of the above comments are true. Im not going to waste your time, or mine by going into the stupid details. But save your money. This will be forever the shittiest movie Stone ever did. Save your money. This movie isnt even worth renting. The story is horrible, the dialog is horrible. If you by chance ignore all these comments, and pay to see this, you will be chomping to leave after the first 30 minutes, and you'll realize your 10bux could be better spent licking industrial Antifreeze off the garage floor. I wish Oliver Stone's email address were public, so I could tell him to gently caress off personally. He took one of the greatest military leaders in history, dressed him up like a little school girl, and talked about his passionate love for penis for three hours. The Discovery channel shows on Alexander's life are by far, much more entertaining. This flick is destined to flop in a big way. I give it 10 days in the theatres before its pulled. .5/5 Indifference fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Nov 26, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2004 08:59
|
|
|
sorry, just realized my review was poo poo.
sex ninja fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Nov 26, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2004 10:58
|
|
|
I expected great things of this movie. Crazy-rear end "movie of the year!!!" quotes from people. Do you know how you realize that you're watching a bad movie? When your rear end hurts. Now most people's asses hurt during a movie but at least during good movies the movie is good enough that you're not giving any attention to your screaming rear end. I must of semi-stood up, stretched, and sighed about 9-12 times because my rear end was hurting so bad. First off, the acting was horrible and way too dramatic. The accents was an orgy of cacophony. Now in this modern era of epic and historic films, I think everyone has secretly agreed that all actors will have British accents...FINE. But now we have Brit, Scottish, Spanish, and a handful of other accents, wtf? Anthony Hopkins hosed himself up. The only decent role I saw was King Philip (Val Kilmer). Thank god because Val kicks rear end. The music made me cringe every loving time. It was the most lame, dramatic, and way overdone score I've ever heard. Every drat moment was defined by the music and what cheesy and unoriginal music it was. Every audio had "corny and over-used" branded all over it. The weird Oliver Stone scene twists in there did not, by any means, enhance the movie. I hated all the Stone-ish elements in there. I thought I was in a for a treat when I discovered that Stone was directing it. So ok, movies are fake. They're loving movies! But this movie was pumping pure Hollywood odor. All the costumes were overdone, the environments were overdone, the jewelry was overdone; everything just looked so ridiculously polished and perfect. There was no solid atmosphere to it. I never once, even when I wanted to, got 'lost' in the movie. The whole long 2 1/2+ hours that I was in there, I knew that I was in a theater with other people watching this same screen of poo poo. Oh snap, and what about the faggotry in this movie? I won't get into that...I have to work tomorrow. I give Alex a 2/5
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2004 11:34
|
|
|
Good God I hated this movie. Gaps in continuity and gayness completely aside, this movie made me painfully aware of just how stupid it is to have pasty white Irish and English actors portray Greek and Macedonian warriors. And Alexander as a goddamn crybaby? One of the greatest calvary commanders of all time, a man who lead his troops from the front in every battle, this guy is a whiny little indecisive bitch off the field? I'm thinking, no. There was nothing good to this movie, at all. As one of the reviewers above stated, if I had gotten my ticket for free I still would have asked for my money back. 1/5
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2004 18:38
|
|
|
Alexander is my pick for worst movie of the year so far. It's main problem is the script, which could have easily been a lot shorter. The pacing of the film is terrible, it doesn't flow like a movie, but rather a collection of pretty scenes. The sexual tensions in the film are overdone... Yes, Oliver, we get that the Greeks used to have male lovers back in those days, you don't have to hint at it every 2 seconds. The casting was great... the idea was epic, but the execution is where everything fell apart. I could go on, but the other reviews have been doing a good job of listing the flaws. The movie is like watching Oliver Stone masturbate for 3 hours. EDIT: Terrible soundtrack too, which didn't help. 2 out 5 klsatolbo fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Nov 26, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2004 18:50
|
|
|
My wife and I both saw this movie last night and thought it was only just barely watchable. It so was incredibly tedious, I was yawning throughout, when I wasn't busy rolling my eyes. The comments of "too gay" are on to something, without being homophobic. The gay dialogue is written so badly, it's comparable to the 8th grade level romance scripting hacked out by George Lucas in Attack of The Clones. It was so over the top and melodramatic, it was hard to take seroiusly. Every relationship in this film came off as phony. Alexander and his mom were ridiculous (why cast a woman only 2 years older than the son is a mystery to me), father and son, husband and wife, husband and gay lover, husband and eunuch gently caress toy, all were just walked through as if you're just supposed to know they care about each other, without the actors doing the proper job to express it. The battle scenes were just OK, but they were nothing that hasn't been done 100 times more impressively in Lord of the Rings or Braveheart. The opening sequence was rather confusing and so full of clouds of dust, it was often hard to tell who was who. Even the potentially kickass elephant battle was marred with Stone's artsy color effects, that reminded me of some kid playing with Adobe Premeier video editing software, than anything that was worthwhile to watch on the screen. Also, Stone couldn't resist making ham-fisted parallels with the Bush's excursious into Iraq and Saddam Hussein references, with Alexander invading Persia, that just made many in the audience groan. Overall, it sucked.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2004 19:55
|
|
|
You know you've watched a crappy movie when the highlight was a glimpse of an elephant getting its trunk sliced off.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2004 22:14
|
|
|
Jesus, what were they thinking when they saw the final cut of that? An hour too long, but great scenary (Babylon looks loving awesome) and great art direction in general. The film was slightly redeemed by Rosario Dawson's HOT HOT HOT body and the elephant battle. 2.5/5
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2004 00:32
|
|
|
Absolutely terrible movie. Alexander of Macedon, a man who conquered the known world, is shown doing almost no conquering, but a lot of running around after poofters. Yes, we all know that Hellenic culture was into homosexuality. Do we need to dwell on that fact for 3 hours? No, we do not. It's too bad that Oliver Stone took the life of a tactical and political genius and decided to concentrate on a little intrigue and a lot of sexual tension in his portrayal. A waste of time and money and a big disappointment.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2004 23:44
|
|
|
absolutely one of the worst movies ive ever seen... its so bad i am actually almost forced to come on here and post this out of sheer angst. half of it is dialogue, the other half horrible acting mixed with gay scenes of colin farrel and his gay buddy. some of the fighting is cool but its got one liners and such mixed in some parts that just really make it completely laughable. i left the theater questining reality, because id been sitting there dying for it to be over. each time i thought it was over, BAM, another dialogue entry. horrible.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2004 09:56
|
|
|
this movie left me speechless, in a bad way. .5/5.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2004 23:08
|
|
|
quote:mindphlux came out of the closet to say: Just wanted to point out that Peter Chung (who I have a huge secret gay crush on) is only responsible for the visual design in Reign. The direction, writing, and sucky voice acting were all beyond his control. I didn't like Reign at all. But I would rather watch Reign while a dentist did painful and expensive things to my teeth than watch Oliver Stone's Alexander again. Pretty much all of the criticism in this thread (with the exception of the Look Maw, a Queer! LOL! complaints) is entirely justified. And thanks to Angelina Jolie and her ridiculous accent, I spent the first thirty minutes waiting for Olympias to send Alexander out to get Moose und Squirrel.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2004 01:37
|
|
|
Alexander is less a movie than it is an elaborate prank whereby Oliver Stone gets people to think they are going to see an historical action adventure film about the Greek conquest of the known world when in reality they've gone to see an historical romance (a gay historical romance). Stone does let us in on at least one keen historical insight: Alexander invaded the east because of ancient Greece's dependance on foreign eyeliner. This movie is almost comically bad I vote this film a 1 out of respect for Oliver Stone's ability to have Angelina Jolie's nipples visible through every costume she wears throughout the film.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2004 03:14
|
|
|
They never stopped making long, pointless, and uninformative dialouges. The entire movie was like one long codec conversation with Rose from Metal Gear Solid 2. Also, Stone cut to an animal's eye every 10 seconds. We got to see the eyes of every animal in the film at least twice. I think he even put more kinds of animals into th movie than neccessary just so that he could show us a picture of their eyes. 1/5 Edit: Now that I've read through this entire thread, I just want to compliment all of you on your wit. Some of the things I read in this thread were the funniest things I've read in days. The Human Crouton fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Nov 29, 2004 |
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2004 06:18
|
|
|
What a terrible film. The highlight of this film, for me, was going to the concession stand. Even when I learned that it was closed, it was better than watching this crap. The pacing in this movie is terrible. Every scene lasts ages when it could be summed up in minutes. Spending ten minutes blathering on and on about some useless bit of historical non-fact only to skip over some of Alexander's greatest military triumphs in under thirty seconds is ridiculous. The movie jumps, unneccesarily, back and forth in time trying to weave together a story that would be best told in a quite linear fashion. And, for the love of God, we don't need to be reminded every five minutes that Alexander had sex with men. Jesus, there was more to his life than getting drunk, buttsex, and talk-talk-talk-talk-talk. Not that this movie would give you any indication to the contrary. Oh, and for all you kids that loved the knife-to-the-throat-segues-into-sex scene in Troy, you'll be happy to know that it happens again in this movie! The one difference? Boobies. 0.5/5. What a god drat waste of my time and money.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2004 06:30
|
|
Failed Sega Accessory Ahoy!
|
Wow, what a terrible movie. If you are going to have gay characters in a movie, you need to really try and get someone who's on screen chemestry clicks. It's hard enough for a strait man to buy a gay couple on screen, but when you have a terrible cast like Collin Farrell, and Jared Leto, all hope is pretty much lost. The crutch of the plot was based on the relationships between the characters, and the whole rainbow parade was totally unbelievable since the chemestry was just not there. The funny parts were not intentional, and the drama was forced and awkward. And was I the only one waiting for Angelina Jolie to say "Go make trouble for moose and squirrel"? This movie loving sucks. 1/5
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2004 06:47
|
|
|
Oliver Stone was, obviously, a terrible choice for director for this particular movie. This movie has two modes that it switches to and from: battle scenes and inter character drama. Both of the modes are completely incoherent, and after many scenes I was left wondering "What the gently caress just happened?". This movie did have great visuals though, and the Macedonian armies looked very realistic, very gritty. This movies weakness does not lie in its sceneries or costumes, all of that was extremely believable and well done. The problem I had was that during the particularly dramatic dialogs (of which there are many), the words coming out of the actors mouths had no meaning, and their demeanors towards each other would change randomly. I give it a 2.5, because half the move(the visual aspect) was etremely well done, but the other half(dialog and plot, not to mention the lack of coherent plot progression) was utter and complete poo poo.So it kinda evens out. Should you see this movie? Well I wouldn't pay to see it, but its worth watching once.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2004 08:31
|
|
|
After taking a semester long course where we analyzed Oliver Stone's evolution as a filmmaker, I can honestly say that this movie rehashes every single one of his weaknesses in a nice little wad called "Alexander". Without Robert Richardson, you can really see that Oliver Stone's style is non-existent. The story had the same Oliver Stone trademarks: proudly masculine character greedy for glory to a fault, surrounded by similarly greedy but more level-headed male characters, and occasionally punctuated with female characters that are 1)completely vacuous and simply love the lead male for reasons barely revealed to the audience (Meg Ryan in "the Doors", the wife in "Talk Radio", the girlfriend in "Midnight Express", etc); or 2) so fiercely masculine, their physical femininity is their sole indication of being a female character (Mallory in "Natural Born Killers", Daryl Hannah's character in "Wall Street", Cameron Diaz in "Any Given Sunday"). Altogether, "Alexander" is a poorly drawn mish-mash of historical facts strung together by the constraints of the film celluloid, but in no capacity a story with a clear thread binding it all together save the exception of simply pertaining to the life and times of Alexander the Great. The sexuality has been addressed by a number of critics, and aside from chuckling at a few of the scenes between Jared Leto and Colin Farrell, I felt the film's story was the largest failure of the film: it had none. Oliver Stone tried desperately to piece together a 3 hour pastiche of the man called "Alexander" when the story often felt like a disconnected glimpse of the past hyphenated by narration of historical events that passed between Stone's points of interest. Voted: 1/5
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2004 17:56
|
|
|
Well, after reading all the comments here is my opinion on this movie. It seemed to me as though Oliver Stone, during the making of this movie, realized that the story he had was nowhere near memorable enough. And being the flashy director he is, he decided that he had to make this movie memorable. So he reverted to Alexander's known bisexuality and beat it into the ground, becuase most people are still shocked and/or offended by homosexuality portrayed in film. It worked, becuase the only part of the movie everybody seems to agree on was that it was really gay. Also, just to add to this, he brought out the fact that Alexander was apparently in love with his mother (which I do not know to be true historically), becuase I guess he wanted to create sexual tension between him and every single other character he encounters. Other than this, some parts were done ok but there were way too many parts that left me saying "umm... what?" for me to give this a good score. 2/5
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2004 20:56
|
|
|
The entire movie left me saying um, what. The thing that struck me most was how much of a pussy Alexander was. I only saw Colin Farrell convey two emotions: deer in headlights, and fussy baby about to cry. I didn't notice a whole lot of Alexander's badassery in battle. In fact, the battles were all extremely inconclusive. For example, I thought at first that they had lost the battle against the Persian army. Then moments later the movie tells you that it was a crushing victory. From a storytelling point of view, this movie does too much telling and not enough showing. However I'll give it a bonus point for Rosario Dawson being completely naked. 2/5
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2004 18:37
|
|
|
The problem with this movie was that they took one of the most interesting figures in history, and included NONE of the interesting stories about him. He conquered the world by the time he was 30, and they showed 2 battles. Stone glossed the gently caress over entire periods of time, going from Alexander's exile to leading his people against the Persians within 5 minutes of each other. Aside from that, my other complaint is the romance in the film. Yes, I understand that Alexander might have been gay, or even probably was. Wonderful. That is NOT the focus of his life, and it's retarded to make a 3 hour movie where half of the time is spent on that. Further, the acting and dialogue between the lovers was *awful*. There was a poster a few up from me who said that society needs to grow up, because the people in the theatre were laughing at the dialogue...well me and my friends were laughing, and not because it was gay, but because it was poorly written. Be honest...if it had been a man and a women in those scenes, it would have still been awful. In short, 0 out of 5, and may God have mercy on Oliver Stone's soul.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2004 19:31
|
|
|
shut up
Somebody fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Dec 3, 2004 |
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2004 20:57
|
|
|
quote:airness007 came out of the closet to say: Just letting you know that you aren't supposed to actually post in here unless you are reviewing. I'm glad you took our word for the movies suckiness, and that our reviews helped you out. I'm sure you'll be much happier not seeing the movie. We just like reviews only to keep arguing about the movie down to a minumum so that people can actually get reviews instead of searching for a review out of a thread full of arguments. Don't worry, the worst that will happen is that a mod will edit your post out, and maybe this one too since this is also not a review. I actually saw the rating on this movie before I went to see Alexander, but I went anyway, only to find that everyone here was right.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2004 23:05
|
|
|
My God was this movie boring. I really wanted to like it, but it was just so incredibly uneventful. I am ashamed for liking that piece of poo poo King Arthur better than this, but I do. Had Stone gotten rid of one hour of bullshit dialogue, made it faster paced, gotten rid of Nicholson and if Jolies part only had been visual (her dialogue is especially horrible) it would have been a much better movie in my opinion. The only good thing about this movie is the cinematography.2/5
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2004 01:49
|
|
|
Calling it the "worst movie of the year" is stupid, especially followed by a 2/5 rating. There are a surprising amount of homophobic comments in this review thread. It was made clear the movie would touch on the bisexual lifestyle of Alexander so why go see it then complain about that later on? You people have a larger problem than disliking the movie. The problem I had with the film's homosexuality was the completely juvenile portrayal of it. Given that Oliver Stone decided to use bisexuality to characterize his Alexander, Stone's inability to maturely handle that aspect destroys any chance of taking the character seriously. The line "it was later said the only thing that could conquer him was Hephaistion's thighs" is just one example. Another example is Jared Leto wearing a hooker's share of eye liner that's on so thick that at one point when he enters a room to face Alexander it took me a few seconds to realize it wasn't Jennifer Connelly. Stone's Alexander comes across as weak and whiny, incapable of making a decision without the counsel of a transsexual-looking Jared Leto. This is Alexander the Doubtful struggling not to conquer any lands but his own sexual confusion. The story of Alexander is also greatly hurt by poor pacing. Just two actual battles are shown, the movie threatens at times to pick up and give you the rated R historical epic you paid for but then quickly slams on the brakes for a pensive Alexander moment where he focuses on his childhood, his life, and the overdone animal symbolism. The accents do nothing to draw you into this world. Angelina Jolie is ridiculous beyond belief and at times it feels like her scenes were shot for a entirely different movie. Rosario Dawson follows her unfortunate precedent and speaks with the same horrible accent. At least her time in the movie is well justified with her loving spectacular body on display. Val Kilmer, otherwise the best thing about the movie, doesn't seem to speak with any apparent dialect at all. Anthony Hopkins seems to be the only one making a concentrated effort to sound anything similar to what a Macedonian might have sounded like. Speaking of Anthony Hopkins, the inclusion of Ptolemy's narration throught out the film is crutch for it's poor narration and lack of focus. He quickly gleams over some of the most important events in Alexander's life in an effort to cover EVERYTHING. This is made all the more frustrating since so much time is already wasted on themes repeated ad infinitum. Instead of focusing on the richer parts of Alexander's life, Stone chooses to revisit Alexander strugging with his parents time and time again in a struggle to borrow from Oedipus. Colin Farrell was a poor choice for Alexander. The film has an uphill battle to fight right off the bat with a 28 year old, cussing, drinking, smoking, dark-featured Irishman famous for exploits with the ladies having to be stuffed down to fit form of a young blonde Greek boy with an affinity for men and women. The contrast only gets worse later on in the movie with Colin Farrell looking every bit a pirate with scraggly, poorly-died hair extensions and black stubble as he gives yet another send off of Braveheart's inspirational speech to the troops as they look on in the sudden confusion of having Blackbeard as their leader. Word is Baz Luhrmann (director of the modern retelling of Romeo & Juliet, and Moulin Rogue) is still interested in bringing his version of Alexander to the screen with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. Interestingly enough DiCaprio was turned down for the role in Oliver Stone's version, as well as Heath Ledger, both of whom would have been far superior choices. I have to give Colin Farrell credit for at least trying this, as he continues trying to mimic the career of Matt Damon with one popcorn flick followed by one artsy flick. The problem is Farrell's movies fail to succeed in their respective intents and it's disheartening to see him not fulfilling the promise seen in his earlier films like Tigerland and Phone Booth. 2/5
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2004 11:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 20:46 |
|
|
Well, everyone was right, although bitching about homosexuality in this movie seems a bit off. Aside from a few key scenes, his homosexuality was really barely even brought up. I wish you melodramatic bastards wouldn't have played up how homo this movie really is. Had you not, I would never have gone to see it. It pisses me off because Colin Farrell and Jared Leto, who played two fuckikng goddamn true-to-life lovers, never loving kissed. The movie isn't that gay. It only mentions homosexuality a few times, and only the very sensitive would even notice the subtleties that Stone added in. That said, however, this movie WAS gay. It was gay in the derogatory, stupid, horrible, ill-conceived way. Farrell simply stumbles from scene to scene, twisting his face into new and Jim Carrey-ian contortions. Jared Leto is cute, but sits dumbly on the sidelines with his mane of mangy hair. Rosario Dawson plays a Downs syndrome patient. And Anthony Hopkins finally looks so old, I had to wait until the end of the movie to make sure it was him. Still, Angelina Jolie loving chews the scenery, and Anthony Hopkins thoroughly sodomizes Farrell in terms of performance. A quick explanation on the accents though--I have no idea why they were loving Irish, but Jolie's made some semblance of sense. See, Philip of Macedon married a woman from the Transylvania region, so at least her accent, while odd, makes some semblance of sense. The rest, well, hosed if I know why they talk like they do. The movie's only strong point, aside from Jolie and Hopkins, was historical accuracy. Philip was assassinated by a eunuch who he raped at a party. Remember the beginning scene during the party? Remember how Philip had a woman on one side and a man hanging on his back? There was a very quick scene where Philip begins to bend the boy over a table, then it cuts to a shot of Farrell, then a shot of the boy being carried away. He was later assassinated; according to legend, it was to get revenge, although the movie made it sound like Alexander's mother was responsible. Also, Alexander very nearly died when first attacking Persia, but was saved at the last minute by one of his bodyguards. These two examples illustrate how awesome the movie could have been. I'll give it a 1 for Jared Leto, but I'm being generous.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2004 09:34
|
|
