Alexander review

"Imagine the minds that conceived this", declares Alexander (Colin Farrell) when he first eyes the opulent excess of Babylon. The speculation could equally be directed at those behind the sprawling mess Alexander.

Inevitably director Oliver Stone must shoulder most of the blame. After waiting years to fulfil his wish to make a film about the legendary king of Macedonia, Stone found himself in a race with Baz Luhrmann who has been developing his own Alexander The Great project. The rush to be the first to the production starting line is evident throughout Alexander, resulting in a film that is an epic in length only.

More time spent eliminating the worst excesses of the script's pompous dialogue would have helped. Lines like, "You birthed me in your sack of hate," as uttered by Alexander to his mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie) are more inclined to solicit a laugh than fuel the dramatic tension. More ruthless editing to reduce it from its interminable running time would have served its cause better as well.

Obviously with a life as eventful as Alexander's, determining what to include is critical. It's strange then that considering all of Alexander's achievements - conquering half the known world by the time he was 25 - Stone's decision to dwell so much on Alexander's homosexuality is a puzzling one. Not that it shouldn't be included, but its looming presence, exhibited by such crass quips as "he was never defeated except by Hephaistion's thigh's," referring to Alexander's boyhood friend and lifelong lover, hovers over everything.

It's hard to conceive of anyone that young being such a towering world leader. Finding someone to convincingly convey Alexander was always going to be difficult. For many, Colin Farrell was a surprising choice. He does possess a rawness and passion, but lacks the commanding stature one associates with the role. Also, playing the eastern European leader with an Irish accent is not a little distracting, while his long golden tresses make him look more like a burly Gwyneth Paltrow impersonator than a ruthless warrior. And having Jolie, who is only a year old than Farrell, playing his mother simply borders on the ludicrous.

The battle scenes form the film's biggest spectacles. Their scale and staging is impressive, but they possess little in the way of invention and ultimately end up a confused blend of fast edits, blood and sand. The decadent moments, most notably the scene inside a Persian harem, almost seem as if Stone has taken a leaf out of Luhrmann's book with the vividly colourful sets and costumes. But without Luhrmann's flamboyant style, it only ends up imbuing Alexander with a corny fakeness.

The film is bookended by overly long scenes of an aged Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) wandering around what looks like Caesars Palace in Las Vegas reminiscing about his beloved Alexander. At one point he declares, "His failures towered over other men's successes." Alas, the same cannot be said of Oliver Stone.

Kevin Murphy