Alexander the pretty-damn-ordinary

I finally got around to watching Alexander the Great last night. I actually had quite high expectations of it - because it had Colin Farrell and Val Kilmer - who I think are pretty good actors, Anthony Hopkins and Christopher Plummer - who are untouchables in my books, and Angelina Jolie - who... err... *cough cough*.

Unfortunately, it tried to be everthing and was nothing. Maybe 4 years of engineering has wrecked that appreciation of art that was drummed into my head in HSC 3 Unit english, but I really found all the "artistic" touches contrived and confusing. Alexander, as a character was strange. On one hand the "storyteller" - Anthony Hopkins was promoting Alexander as a particular personality, but the actions of Alexander were a complete contradiction. It just didn't make any sense. It was as if they just paid lip-service to creating a character -rather telling us what he was like- and focusing more on creating an epic series of events.

Thematically, there were some interesting areas, such as Alexanders apparent respect for the "East" where all other Greeks saw them as inferior races. Also, grand ideas of humanity living as one were enunciated briefly, counterbalanced against the beliefs that only a single ruler could unite. There were tantalising hints of psychological influences that may have shaped Alexander, including oedipalistic themes, but they failed to be explored enough to make them the concrete. There was great potential in this movie to work with the myth of Alexander, and place it in a historical context - but it was never realised in this movie.

Visually, it was undoubtedly impressive. There were wide sweeping landscape shots, and incredibly close up "in the action" battle scenes. I must say the effect with the eagles perspective was creative and visually impressive. Near the end, however, there are a series of scenes where everthing is show in a red wash-out, with the blood yellow. It worked in Sin City, but here, that technique was totally out of place within the genre. Generally, the acting was very believable, but it was unable to save what were ultimately, poorly constructed characters.

Overall, Alexander the Great was movie that tried so hard to be a grand historical epic, but I think became self-serving, and lost the audience along the way.

1 Indian War Elephant out of 5