This one was a miss...

Oliver Stone has good movies and bad movies. I feel so bad for him that his childhood favorite epic that he spent over $150 million to film was TERRIBLE.

Alexander had so much potential. It had drama. High-strung parents. Exotic locations. It had battle scenes. First-rate actors. But then it all went horribly wrong.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. Look away if you want to waste $10 to see this disappointing movie.

Where do I begin?

The actual briliance of Alexander as a military strategist and tactician was not even addressed. It was just assumed he was great and everyone loved him. It was not shown HOW he got to be so popular with those he conquered. If my honey and I hadn't seen the Discovery Channel show about Alexander the Great, we wouldn't have known what was going on.

The battle scene of Guaguemela was horribly shot. Granted, fighting + desert= dustbowl, but it was inconsistant with the dust and clean shots, not to mention, the editing was choppy.

Alexander's speech before the troops failed miserably to compare with other epic military speeches such as the "Freedom" speech in Braveheart and the "St Crispin's Day" speech of Henry V by Shakespeare. It was the most non-motivational speech I have EVER seen and I think even Oliver Stone knew it because he kept CUTTING OUT THE AUDIO of Colin Farrell's hoarse voice with so-called "vivid battle scene backround noise". It never came across as to why the troops should follow him into such a blood-soaked battle.

Speaking of Colin Farrell's voice, I didn't know Alexander and anyone that played in a scene with him had an Irish accent. He could have at least TRIED to lose the brogue.

Rosario Dawson and Angelina Jolie took cues from Aaliyah's bad accent in "Queen of the Damned" and overacted in every scene. My honey commented that he didn't know that they had silicone breasts back then but that they looked great on Rosario.

The homosexual content of Alexander's life cannot be ignored, but come on. It was when Colin beared his ass and a glimpse of his "tallywacker" was on screen with another guy in the room, about 15 guys walked out of the theater, laughing. Every scene with his lover, Hephaistion, there was that "will they, won't they" kiss, have intercourse, whatever, uncomfortable feeling. Their love/lust was unmistakeable, but Oliver really went overboard to the fact. And then when Hephaistion dies, Oliver barely does it justice, where Alexander REALLY had a 5-storey funeral pyre for him. It wasn't even mentioned.

Jared Leto (Hephaistion) did a really great job. He was understated when he needed to be and forceful when he needed to be. He showed emotion in his eyes and I really felt for him when Alexander took a wife. As a matter of fact, he was the BEST actor of this whole fiasco. The fact that I have loved his work since "My So-called Life" has nothing to do with it. It was "Requiem for a Dream" that really had me supporting him as a talented actor.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, another one of my favorite actors since "Titus" and "Velvet Goldmine", was not well represented in this film. His character seemed whiny and wasn't consistent with either siding with or opposing Alexander.

There is sooo much more to pan here, but I will have to save it for another post after I get the crockpot going. Happy Friday!