Alexander

Certificate US: R UK: 15
Released in the UK, Friday, 7th of January by Warner Bros Pictures
Run time: 175 minutes Reviewed by Jacqueline Sharp

Oliver Stone, Hollywood director, (Any Given Sunday, Nixon, Natural Born Killers, JFK, The Doors, Born on The Fourth of July, Wall Street and Platoon), has fulfilled his lifetime dream in making the movie Alexander, as both screenwriter and director. He first became interested in Alexander at New York University's Film School in 1969, where he took a course in Greek mythology. In 1989 Oliver and Thomas Schuhly, (also fascinated with Alexander) both got together to discuss the possibility of making the movie. The rest really is history! Later they teamed-up with Professor Lane Fox who became their historical advisor giving them insight into the life of Alexander the Great, who conquered the known world in his 33 years and was halted only by death in 323 BC.

Alexander the epic will take up three hours of your time. I think that two hours would have been enough! I would have liked there to have been an Alexander II to spread out his lifestory, which was full of personal conflicts and his courageous (obsessive?) struggle to conquer the world.

In the movie there seemed to be too much focus spent on two battles chosen - The Morocco Battle of Gaugamela and The Indian battle in Thailand. I would have preferred more battles spread out over two movies, with less time spent on each, less is often more!

I felt that with the two drawn-out battles chosen in Alexander overshadowed the fantastic acting in many personal scenes. These scenes about relationships could have been easy to forget about due to the fuss of battle and fight.

Connor Paolo, played the young 13 year old Alexander and he is in one of the most amazing scenes with the wild stallion Bucephalas.

Colin Farrell (Tigerland, Minority Report, Phone Booth, and The Recruit) in role as Alexander is magnificent! He has taken the role as far as it could have gone; no other actor could have done any better. Colin made the movie what it is and he made it come together in his own right. I would like to think that Colin would be nominated for an Oscar for his excellent performance, which is his best acting to date.

One major criticism I have was that the majority of the actors had Irish accents, some Scottish, some Welsh. I would have liked to see a few Greek actors cast, and some Greek language scenes with subtitles might have added to the feeling of authenticity.

I thought that it was genius that Oliver Stone used a narrator to tell the story of Alexander in flashback mode, the narrator being Ptolemy, (Anthony Hopkins).

Oliver Stone adds his own personal touches to the movie and I particularly like the way that he introduced an Eagle in several shots throughout the movie. The eagle closely followed Alexander's path of life, which was very unusual and mystical. Oliver added a clever touch when he made the leaves turn to red when Alexander got injured in the battle of India.

Overall, Alexander, the movie is an entertaining film, which has many great qualities! Oliver spent many hours with Professor Lane Fox, historian, to make sure that the facts were accurate to Alexander's life.

You will enjoy the music from Greek Composer, Vangelis, famous for his synthesizer music, dug deep into the roots of Greek and Macedonian musical heritage, and come up trumps with a masterpiece score, which have a Celtic influence incorporating drums, lutes and lyres.

CREDITS

DIRECTOR

Oliver Stone

SCREENWRITERS

Oliver Stone

Christopher Kyle

Laeta Kalogridis

PRODUCERS

Thomas Schuhly

Jon Kilik

Iain Smith

Moritz Borman

CAST

Colin Farrell, (Alexander)

Angelina Jolie, (Olympias)

Val Kilmer, (King Philip II of Macedonia)

Jared Leto, (Hephaistion)

Anthony Hopkins, (Ptolemy)

COMPOSER

Vangelis

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