Over the last few years, mostly due to the BBC's habit of playing it almost constantly, I've watched a documentary series on Alexander the Great about five times. Believe me, it could have been a bloody sight more times.
Now I'm not claiming this docco was particularly good or bad, or indifferent, but it was interesting and informative about a classical figure I previously knew nothing about.
So imagine how my interest was piqued by reports that Oliver Stone was making a biopic. Imagine how that interest was magnified just lately by reports that it had bombed in the States because of the homosexual subtext.
So I did some digging. Not much, it has to be said. What follows is a taste, a miniscule taste, of the reviews I found on the Yahoo Movies site:
"Lunacraz" says:
And apparently, Alexander was really gay. Increibly gay. Im not saying this because I want to, but 1/3 of the movie is, honestly, pointing out how gay Alexander was. Maybe they're trying to show Platonism in process. But, to me, and to everyone else in the audience, the movie went out of its way to make Alexander really gay.
Dont see this movie... unless you want comedy.
Strike one for "Don't see this movie because it makes Alexander look gay"
"erving06us" says:
Instead of giving us exciting, grand battle sequences, he gives us wobbly camera angles and loads of dust, which simply disorient the viewer. Instead of showing us Alexander's interaction with the citizens in the lands he conquered, he gives us arguments between the soldiers and bizarre hallucinations involving Alexander's mother (Angelina Jolie) and father (Val Kilmer). I hoped the film would show us how Alexander's influence over the lands he conquered changed them for better or worse. Unfortunately, this film just breezes from one conquered civilization to the next with hardly any insight into those lands at all. Strangely, with such quick transitions from land to land, you would think there would be plenty of battle sequences. No such luck. There are only two battle sequences in the whole film and they last for a very short time. I was actually relieved when each battle ended because in an attempt to make the viewer feel as though they are right in the middle of things with close-up camera work, it simply made my head spin. I could not follow much of what was happening and could never really tell who was winning the fights.
Alexander didn't have a whole lot of interacting with the people he met. His troops did. Groups of them stayed behind in the countries he conquered and their descendants still live in those areas today, 2,500 years later. The transitions from land to land are wholly realistic. One thing that stood out from the documentary is how Alexander swept through Asia and India at a startling pace,
"silvanelf1982" says:
Perhaps the most interesting issues in the film lay with Alexander's personality. I won't go into detail, but if you see the film, expect some surprises that you might not expect to see on the big screen.
Herein lies the problem: While there's rife speculation and slash fiction galore about the ambiguous sexuality of hollywood superheroes, this never translates to the big screen. I've seen reports where an actors have turned down roles based on how their sexuality would be percieved as a result. The poor oversensetive Americans aren't expecting to see this aspect of Alexander's story, so when it turns up, it's magnified in the minds of the watchers until it becomes a vast controversy.
"john_amanda@sbcglobal.net" says:
It felt like I had accidently rented a video about the sexual ambiguities of Alexander the Great. I kind of wandered if this movie doesn't almost have a hidden agenda intended for it's viewers. Well that's my opinion of the first half of the movie since I couldn't stomach the next 1 1/2 hours.
"jcwestin" says:
So, let's boil it down to the "pink elephant in the room" no one wants to admit is there: The real issue that's driving most reviews is the depiction of Alexander as bisexual. The unconscious hysteria this idea is generating has created an outpouring of aggression...
Alexander is just a movie, but at least it's one that hits a cord, and in today's comfortably-numb cultural climate that's worth something.
"bwdycus" says:
Take away the Homo-erotic aspects of this film that made it very akward to watch, the film stinks...
I got this feeling that Oliver Stone was making fun of me. "Hey lets put out a huge piece of crap film with a whole lot of things that would make most of America cringe, put out previews of a historical epic with major stars, and see what idiots pay for the movie."
The New York Post says:
Embracing Alexander's bisexuality - though not to the point of actual guy-on-guy action - is the only subversive element in this otherwise surprisingly old-fashioned and plodding epic by the once-maverick Stone.
Stone and Farrell end up going too far - their light-in-the-sandals Alexander is often such a simpering, indecisive wuss that it's hard to accept he conquered most of the known world before his mysterious death at the age of 33 in 323 B.C.
The frequently risible script by Stone, Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis suggests Alexander conquered the world primarily to get away from his Mommie Dearest.
"What have I done to make you hate me so?" Olympia asks a teenage Alexander (Farrell looking even more ridiculous with Jolie, who is only one year older than him) in the film's funniest speech - delivered in a Bela Lugosi accent.
Meanwhile, Alexander's drunk and uncouth father, the one-eyed warrior King Philip (a bellowing Val Kilmer), who despises Olympias even more than his wife hates him, warns poor Alexander that "women are more dangerous than men."
With role models like these (and Christopher Plummer's doddering, Greeks-first Aristotle), it's no wonder that when Alexander marries an erotic dancer (Rosario Dawson) to produce an heir, he tries to rape her on their wedding night.
She replies with a knife to his throat, and soon he's merrily sharing a tent with Hephaistion and a topless castrato.
The Chicago Tribune says:
Stone's "Alexander" is an incredibly lurid movie, an epic that portrays Alexander and his contemporaries (not without justification) as a gallery of heroes, monsters, gods and goddesses, often with feet of steaming clay. And it paints Alexander himself as a prodigy of battle and visionary of world order, undone by his own unstoppable quest, by the hellish fury of his mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie, looking vampirish and insatiable) and the seething corruption of his times.
...he presents Alexander with greater sympathy than he lavishes on most political leaders: as an idealistic world-unifier who tried to meld his vast conquered empire together with cultural tolerance and enlightened policies but failed because of over-reaching.
Stone gives us an embarrassment of riches all the same, aided by a crack team that includes Peter Greenaway's designer Jan Roelfs and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto ("Amores Perros"). He demonstrates certain gifts, for richly detailed yet imaginative ancient history, we might not have guessed from this son of the '60s. Aided by historical adviser Robin Lane Fox (whose popular 1973 biography is worth a reading before or after you see the film), this movie is an impressive feat of reconstruction. Even if it often looks like the maddest of fantasies - especially when it swoops us into bacchanalian revels in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or cues a last staggering Indian elephant charge - the vision grabs us.
I think Stone wins his bet with history, but not without cost. Many will find the movie overwrought, oversexual or even ludicrous.
Alexander's bisexuality won't sit well with moral hard-liners. Devotees of the old Hollywood historical vision of a Cecil B. DeMille will certainly take violent offense.
So I'm fascinated. And I'm going to have to watch it. And I might even try and catch the "In the footsteps of Alexander The Great" docco on UKTV History one more time, just for the hell of it. Then, maybe a review. Watch this space.
