L. KENT WOLGAMOTT/Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 6:00 pm
Full of bravado, personal conflict, high emotion and grand theatricality, "Alexander" is unquestionably an Oliver Stone movie. There may not have been a subject better suited for Stone's bravura style of filmmaking than Alexander the Great, the legendary Macedonian leader who conquered 90 percent of the known world by the time he was 25.
A brilliant general who would never ask his soldiers to do anything he wouldn't do himself, Alexander never lost a battle. A visionary who thought he was uniting the world, he was also a troubled man, torn between his brutal, stern father and his sheltering, manipulative mother. Bisexual in an age and class when such behavior was the norm, he had a lifelong male friend and numerous wives.
And he died at age 33 in 323 B.C., another element in a classic story that seems to be perfectly designed for the big-budget, contemporary Hollywood treatment.
Stone gives it just that with some epic battle scenes that are far more effective than those in "Braveheart" and "Troy," well-designed period sets and costumes, and universally strong performances from a cast led by Colin Farrell, who goes well beyond anything he's yet done.
The framing device Stone and co-writers Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis use to telescope the sprawling story down to a manageable package is narration from the aging Pharaoh Ptolemy, who is dictating his memoirs of Alexander to a scribe. That technique lets a few lines of dialogue move the story through conquests and upheaval to get to pivotal episodes in Alexander's life, preventing the picture from ever becoming close to boring.
Ptolemy is played by Anthony Hopkins, who memorably worked with Stone in "Nixon." Also returning to a Stone cast is Val Kilmer, who was Jim Morrison in "The Doors" and now plays Philip of Macedonia, Alexander's father.
It is Philip's murder that propels young Alexander to the throne, and the son's involvement in the death of the father has long been a subject of debate. Stone, of course, has his opinion as to what transpired in Philip's demise. But he cleverly doesn't include that speculation in the film's historical narrative. Rather, it is the only flashback in the series of passages stitched together by Ptolemy's narration.
Beyond Philip, the key figures early in Alexander's life are his mother, Olympias (Angelina Jolie), and his teacher, Aristotle (Christopher Plummer). From Olympias, who was a tough survivor as well as being a member of the snake-handling cult of Dionysus, Alexander learned guile and self-protection. From the legendary thinker Aristotle, he gained the knowledge and intellectual drive that he used to conquer the world.
The final figure who entered Alexander's life as a boy is Hephaistion, his lifelong friend and companion. The only person Alexander ever trusted and likely his lover, Hephaistion (Jerod Leto) provides an anchor of emotional and personal stability for the volatile young ruler.
Together, Alexander and Hephaistion conquered the world. The biggest victory in that effort came at the Battle of Gaugamela, where Alexander led 40,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry against Persian King Darius III's 250,000-strong army. One of the most famous battles in history, Gaugamela occupies the center of "Alexander" and is strikingly filmed, combining overhead views of Alexander's phalanxes moving forward in a gutsy strategy with groundlevel action that is brutally kinetic.
Stone's historical adviser on the film was Alexander biographer Robin Lane Fox, which means, if nothing else, there was a concerted effort to try to get things close to the way they were. I can't attest to the movie's accuracy, but it looks and feels right for the period and the outline of Alexander's story at least as I recall it is spot on.
The actors speak in Irish, Scottish, Welsh and other accents. That seems a bit odd. But Stone was trying to demonstrate the fact that ancient Greece and Macedonia were melting pots of different dialects and each of the accents coincides with the outlying kingdom its speakers represent. That's pretty subtle, but evidence of the care that went into making the picture.
This being a Stone movie, there will certainly be those who rip it for being overly dramatic and perhaps for contemporizing ancient cultures.
But I found "Alexander" to be powerful and compelling and just the kind of treatment its subject deserves.
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.
Alexander
Director: Oliver Stone
Stars: Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Jerod Leto, Rosario Dawson, Anthony Hopkins
Rated: R (violence and some nudity/sexuality)
Now Showing: Edgewood; 2 screens, Grand
The Reel Story: Farrell plays Macedonian leader Alexander the Great on his conquest of most of the known world in this well-acted, powerful, three-hour biopic.