Alexander

I really really want to see this movie. I hear it is bad though, thoughts?

 

It's a pretty mediocre movie and unless you are interested in seeing the homoerotic side of Colin Farrel I would say skip it. But if you really really want to see it then why not just go? It's not like getting a PhD... you just walk up and buy a ticket

 

I agree with Gary Green () in that it was, to me, mediocre as well. Granted Angelina Jolie and Rosario Dawson do look pretty hot in it, but that's about it. It just seemed as though the cast was chosen purely by their current popularity and not because they'd fit the role best. Hell Angelina Jolie is supposed to be Colin Farrell's mother in the film yet they look like they're same age (I believe she is only a few years older than him in real life too). Definitely not one of Oliver Stone's finest moments, but not completely horrible.

 

Angelina is hot. Other than that, nothing to exciting. Basically the same story told about a dozen different times...first, fight people, then fight people on horses, then fight people on camels, then fight people on elephants....gets a bit drawn out.
If the movie was 1.5hrs instead of 3, then it would have been much more enjoyable....they way overplayed the whole Alexander loves men deal too.
Not worth paying $20 to see in the theater with your date, wait for the dvd and rent it for a few bucks.

 

Omar........

I have made it a rule not to bother going to see movies that are longer than 110-120 minutes....max.

This thing is over three hours long.......that alone should be the first consideration IMHO. Swords and togas can only go so far.

 

I thought it was good. Alot better than Troy. I rank it below Julius Ceasar and around the same space as gladiator.

 

If they cut all the Ghey stuff out it would have been only 2 hours

I thought Troy was Much better & I didnt have to watch polesmokers & fudgepackers at play. I saw Alex in South Beach in a dark room filled w ghey men, I dont think I want to do that again. The ghey couple next to me kept gasping everytime a fairy Princess walked in, Sheesh

Gladiator is better than Troy & WAY better than Alex the Ghey

 

LoL!

 

It's a TERRIBLE movie. In fact, I'd say it's a perfect study of how NOT to make a historical epic. Don't waste your money, and more importantly your time, watching this Oliver Stone garbage.

There are too many problems to list in full, but the more glaring ones are : weird accents like Alex's mom speaking in a thick Russian accent, the rest of the accents are more or less random, Irish, British, whatever. Horrible pacing, and the weak "cop-out" use of the Anthony Hopkins (Ptolemy) narration. I found the narration to be incredible because they just verbally described most of Alex's epic conquests - as if Stone had forgotten this was a movie, not an audio book. There were only two battles seen in the whole movie, the first one a confused mess with none of the epic stature of the ones in Braveheart, for example. The second one (the tragic battle in India) was a little better, but nothing great. There were a lot of historical inaccuracies, and Stone seemed to like pounding it into our brains that Alex was gay and had an Oedipal complex. Despite Alex's artlessly "implied" gayness, there just had to be one scene of steamy nude heterosex with Rosario Dawson (not that I'm complaining, really )

When I came back disgusted after the movie, I googled for critical reviews. I found that one critic hit the nail right on the head with this scathing comment (paraphrasing) :

"After the movie, my friend (not a history buff) turned to me and asked, "So what exactly made this guy great ?" After three hours of film, if a director can't even communicate this important message, I'd say that's a dismal failure."

'Nuff said. Don't watch it.

 

He was greatly Ghey LOL

 

>Alot better than Troy

Well Allan, Troy sucked d*** big time, and ole Alexander was neither gay, nor a Greek, no matter how much revisionist hollywierd types would present it.

Alexander's father, Philip of Macadonia, conquered the Greeks, and made Greece his backyard.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Alexander kicked ass in the ancient world.
He did not "kiss ass."

Just ask Tyre.

The movie is trash.

 

I think you just talked me out of even renting it.

I never saw Troy, may be a renter. IMO, Brad Pitt is about the most untalented big time leading-man actor working.

Gladiator is a classic, in my opinion. Killing off Crowe's Maximus character was a bad move, a lost chance at a decent to very good (and profitable) sequel.

 

Yes. Alexandhismanboys was a poor movie.

 

I'm no Brad Pitt fan, but he is a good actor. His roles may not play to his strongest abilities but he plays them well. When you do a movie like Troy or Alexander you can't really act, you kinda have to play the guy like history remembers him. Fight club was one of Pitt's best movies IMO. Again I'm not a movie guy but he tends to play the gruffy guy instead of the leading man always with the leading woman {he's not afraid to play a sleezeball}. But hey, we're here to bash Alexis.

 

Pitt is Cary Grant compared to how Farrel acted in Alexander

 

I'd agree with Gabriel somewhat. This POS was a waste of 3 hours and twenty bucks. As someone who is familiar with both the historical figure and the legend, I found it disappointing. Angelina Jolie is always a plus but that rampant poofterism was to me, simply...disgusting.

 

Poofterini Rampante LOL

 

have never come out of the closet on this one, but i always enjoyed watching him werk too.

as for fight club being his best movie... as far as performance goes, Kalifornia is his best. other movies like se7en and fight club are great movies in their own right, brad pitt just happened to be in them, but was the perfect part for them.

i also like true romance, johnny suede, interview with the vampire, twelve monkeys, cool world, and maybe even across the tracks, dunno.

 

Interesting reads on Alexander's "homosexuality" :


http://www.androphile.org/preview/Library/Biographies/Alexander/Alexander.htm

http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=42

Cliff notes : he probably did have a sexual relationship with at least two men, Hephaiston and the eunuch Bagoas. He also did marry a female Roxane, fathering a child with her. He also took on other wives. So he was bisexual, by modern definition.

I say "by modern definition", because such things were "par for the course" back then. I suppose they were more liberated and open-minded than a lot of modern people are about such things. Then again, what Alex did wasn't quite kosher because male-male love was not really supposed to occur between men of equal age (that was frowned upon), but rather as an older man seducing a young boy (this was OK). Of course, in modern times,man-boy love is pedophilia and a crime whereas man-man love is legally fine in most civilised places.

I never had a problem with the portrayal of Alex as a bisexual, because that was most likely fact, I just disliked the way Stone seemed the need to focus on that to the exclusion of much else of relevance (many of his military battles, for one thing !). He was not always magnanimous to his enemies after he defeated them : he burned down the Xerxes temple in Babylon to humiliate them and he allowed his men to sack Tyre after the besieged city eventually fell. These ugly facets of the great military leader were never shown. In India, he defeated Porus despite his elephants and killed his two sons, after which Porus became an ally, but in the movie, Alexander's army seems to fall apart the first time they encounter elephants. That was inaccurate.

Nevertheless, a lot of what was portrayed about Alex's sexuality (for example, his kissing of the eunuch in public) did really happen, as recorded by reputed ancient historians. The parallels between Alexander-Hephaiston and Achilles-Patroclus were also correct, in that Alexander himself probably saw his relationship in those terms (Achilles sexually loved Patroclus too).

As far as lesbianism in ancient days, read about Sapphos of Lesbo.