Alexander

Yes it’s as bad as people say it is and if you don’t want to waste the best part of 3 hours in your life, give this one a wide berth. Its another big classic period epic. Gladiator was ok but had many faults, Troy was in parts, the best of the bunch (great fight scenes and that wonderful horse), sadly Alexander is the worst of the three with few redeeming features.

Firstly, Alexander’s story is told here by unintentionally funny narrator Anthony Hopkins as old man Ptolemy. He sets out to tell us why Alexander was truly great – only thing is the bulk of story told over the next 165 mins doesn’t really convince audiences that he was great, so when Ptolemy returns at the end to tell us ‘that’s why he was great’, his comments are likely to be treated with outright derision. It was somewhat comforting to find the packed preview audience that I was with, came up with that response.

So what have we got ? Colin Farrell complete with blond highlights, playing the Macedonian king with gay tendencies towards Hephaistion (Jered Leto) whilst marrying an Eastern Princess Roxane (Rosario Dawson). Angelina Jolie playing Alexander’s mother (!) Olympias complete with dodgy accent and a wooden Val Kilmer playing his father Philip. There are some big epic battle scenes, the final one being the most satisfying for the simple reason that we see this enigmatic king and his marauding troops coming up against organised Indian adversaries complete with menacing elephants who have no intention of giving an inch in defence of their homelands.

Overall though Alexander is less-than-convincing. There’s a long time spent in the company of Hollywood actors spouting off ridiculous dialogue punctuated by the odd bit of exciting battle action. If you’ve not laughed unintentionally before the final reel, look out for a fabulous scene where a character (not saying which one) takes an age to die and at the same time, the great Alexander is delivering an epic speech without a care in the world – talk about unintentionally bad timing. If there’s one good thing to come out of Alexander, its hopefully that Hollywood will now think twice before spending big bucks on putting stars into drag for ridiculous classical legend escapades about megalomaniac leaders and their concubines.

Matt Arnoldi