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Rated R; running time of 2 hours and 47 minutes
Genre: Historical Drama
Written by: Oliver Stone and Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Cast:: Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Plummer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Brian Blessed
WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW.
The Digest
I think that everyone knows or should know of Alexander the Great. As such, I will just lightly touch upon his life according to Oliver Stone. Alexander (Colin Farrell) was A Macedonian King. He is of questionable lineage as intimated by the faithful historian, Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins). But this is mostly myth and conjecture and does not stop him from ascending to the throne because his father, Philip, (Val Kilmer) is murdered.
The Greatness of Alexander is that he was, what some call, the greatest military general of his time. His conquering of almost all of the known land at the time, is a feat unmatched.
The Dish
I truly do not understand what the big gay deal is. It is clear to me that he was, and so what. Being Gay did not carry the stigma of today, back then. It was accepted as normal in the Greek culture. Imagine that… homosexuality accepted as normal and people still got married and had babies. Because of our social mores, his life is practically whitewashed. What a shame. And they whitewashed it with ridiculous accents. Okay tht was a little uncalled for.
I walked away not learning anything new about Alexander and not being compelled to do much in the way of investigation. This is a clear indication to me that my interest was not held. Usually when I watch a movie based on a real person, I want rush right home and start researching him/her and just generally want to know more about that person. Such was not the case with Stone’s Alexander. I was more than happy to be done with Alexander and his creepy mama.
There is not one performance that stands out in a positive light for me. Some were worse than others, but they were all equally bad.
The DVD
DISC SPECS
Languages: English, French
Subtitles: : English, French, and Spanish
Running Time: 2 hrs. 57 mins.
Number of Discs: 2
SPECIAL FEATURES
Disc One
Audio Commentary by director Oliver Stone
DISC TWO:
Documentary: "Resurrecting Alexander"
Documentary: "Perfect is the Enemy of God"
Documentary: "The Death of Alexander"
Soundtrack Featurette: "Vangelis Scores Alexander"
Theatrical trailers
The real crime of this edition is that nothing has changed. When I watch a Director’s cut, I expect clarity. I expect things to be better explained. I expect a big light bulb to go off over my head. I certainly do not expect to pay more money to see basically the same movie I saw 8 months before the DVD. And that’s what happened. There is nothing new that I could discern on this DVD. It didn’t flow better, it didn’t make more sense, it didn’t even seem more interesting. It was rather disappointing to be honest.
The Directive
I really and truly wish that I could recommend this DVD. But it really doen’t add anything to the theatrical release.
It’s an epically bad epic..
DVD RATING
Unfortunately, this DVD does not fix the movie.
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Copyright Kamal "The Diva" Larsuel-Ulbricht, 2005
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