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Back Shelf Beauties
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Alexander Note: Director Oliver Stone has cut 8 minutes from Alexander for its DVD release, but I can't imagine he made it better unless he cut all 180 minutes, so the review stands. Every year, you can count on Hollywood to release one movie that opens to boos, hisses, mocking laughter and taunts from the audience. Without a doubt in my mind, Alexander is the biggest bomb of 2004. Colin Farrell stars as Alexander the Great - the legendary leader of the Greeks/Macedonians who conquered almost all of Egypt, the Middle East and India back around 300 B.C. The movie follows him from childhood through his teen years and into the core of his life as a military mastermind and leader who accomplished greatness and glory never to be matched. At almost 3 hours long, it's an epic journey that covers many of the important moments in his life, possible motivations for his actions and his unbridled ambition. However, towards the end of this movie, I wanted to kill Alexander just to get it over with and go home. Almost everything with Alexander is wrong. Even Rosario Dawson's supposedly stunning nudity, which has been trumpeted by many reviews I have read, was over-hyped. So, who's to blame? I'm looking at you, Oliver Stone. Forget about the controversy over the portrayal of Alexander's possible bi-sexuality, this movie has major structural and narrative problems destined to drive many from the Cineplex seeking a refund. Writer/director Stone has provided an unwieldy movie that collapses under its own weight and ambition (much like Alexander the Great himself?). Without a strongly defined story, the audience is left to bounce from battle to battle and speech to speech with very little explanation of what is happening or why. In one of the movie's worst decisions, Stone takes away an extremely important scene that helps explain Alexander's quest to avenge his father's death and his reaction to the dastardly deed, then places it out of sequence about an hour and half too late in the film. We're beyond trying to care or understand any of this once Stone reveals this vital truth and action, and it hurts the film beyond repair, especially since it is referred to in passing throughout the movie. Stone continues to damage his own attempts to build drama in other instances as well. During Alexander's huge speech to motivate his 40,000 soldiers to take on a force of 250,000, Stone cuts away to show us a silly symbolic eagle flying overhead instead of letting us hear the speech and see Alexander getting his troops ready for the greatest and most difficult battle of their lives. Later in the film, as Alexander is badly injured and clinging to life, Stone inserts some odd red tint to the scene that only distracts us. On top of all of that, the battle sequences are hard to follow and appear to be more of a blur of action and edits rather than a fluid fight scene. Also, I can't forget the campy scenes like Alexander surveying his newly acquired harem as they dance suggestively for him or heterosexual sex scenes that contain violence to make some point that escapes me. Even dramatic, touching scenes where Alexander declares his love to Hephaistion (Jared Leto) are greeted with giggles by an audience numbed and bored by the bloated film. The acting performances are more of a mixed bag. Farrell somehow overcomes his hair dyed blonde and feathered, his eyebrows sometimes dyed blonde, and his shaved legs to keep us awake. The guy is trying very hard to make this work, and with a better story, he might have been successful. Sadly, while Kilmer has some nice moments as Alexander's father, Philip, Angelina Jolie was not a welcome addition as the mother, Olympias. Can someone explain to me why Jolie has adopted a Russian accent in this movie? Is she auditioning for the next James Bond movie? As the scheming, conniving, political adept mother, Jolie never seems to fit into the film. It's as if she is trying so hard to stand out, she doesn't go with the movie's flow, and it seems weird to have her play the mother of an actor who looks the same age as her. Alexander is atrocious. The only thing that could make it worse is a walk on by Ben Affleck or Jennifer Lopez. 0 Waffles (Out Of 4) Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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