“Fortune favors the bold.”
Third time’s the charm so they say. Oliver Stone just can’t get Alexander the Great out of his system so he goes back a third time to re-cut the 2004 film creating this 214-minute final cut.
Oliver Stone’s Alexander has been the subject of much derision since it appeared on movie screens in November 2004. Sometimes critics need a film to take their frustration out on and Stone’s epic was their choice in the year 2004. It failed miserably at the U.S. box office but went on to be more popular at the international box office. Needless to say, whatever its popularity overseas it didn’t recover the $155 million in production costs it took to make it. However, that hasn’t stopped Stone from trying to refashion the film. The theatrical cut ran 175 minutes and he released his director’s cut onto DVD in July 2005 that ran 167 minutes. Now he brings us a third visit to Alexander with this new “Revisited” final cut.
Farrell plays Alexander as a wide-eyed madman too much
Alexander tells the story of Alexander of Macedonia (Colin Farrell) who history would dub Alexander the great for his vast empire, which was most of the known world to the ancient Greeks. Most of these magnificent feats occurred before his 30th birthday. The cast is a huge one and perhaps even befitting an epic film of yore.
Val Kilmer plays Philip II, Alexander’s father, with Angelina Jolie playing Olympias, his mother. Sir Anthony Hopkins begins the film playing old Ptolemy, who was one of Alexander’s generals (played by Robert Earley in youth) and Christopher Plummer has a cameo playing Aristotle. Some of the other faces include Jared Leto as Hephasiton, Rosario Dawson as Roxane, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Cassander.
I was a bit hesitant to review Alexander. I do have the Director’s Cut on DVD but I could never find the time to watch it and those negative criticisms always echoed in the back of my head when I picked it up. So I would always put it down and move on to the next film. That was when I wasn’t reviewing films for M&C and could actually watch whatever I felt like. Now I don’t have time to do that anymore since I have to watch what is given me to review. So I might actually be Oliver Stone’s perfect audience to watch what he considers his last pass at making Alexander.
This will be the first time that I’ve watched his epic. What did I think? Well…it was okay. I think that it might’ve been unjustly drawn and quartered, but I can also see why it was. I should probably start with the good. Old hands Anthony Hopkins and Christopher Plummer come off the best and it made me wish that they were in the film more. Heck, maybe Stone should’ve made a biopic of Aristotle instead. Hopkins does have presence throughout the film since he narrates it. The battles are also spectacular and bloody, the one with the elephants being quite daring. The production is also wonderful and obviously lots of money was spent on sets and spectacle.
The bad would include Alexander himself. Although Farrell is a decent actor, I never got into his Alexander. He plays him sometimes as a wide-eyed madman too much. The ugly (continuing with the usual combination and not meaning that what I’m about to mention is actually ugly) includes several of the cast’s accents. I didn’t know that Philip II of Macedon (Val Kilmer) was Irish (though in his defense he may have adopted the accent of Farrell since Alexander sounds Irish on occasion). Rosario Dawson is also saddled with a strange accent that annoyed me whenever she spoke. However, the biggest offender was Angelina Jolie. Whenever she opened her mouth it completely took me out of the movie. She has a Bela Lugosi or mad gypsy woman type accent and it made me laugh whenever she opened her mouth.
The battle sequences are quite spectacular
Another thing is the way that Stone jumps around in Alexander’s life. He has a tendency to have one scene, then go back nine years, and then go forward 10 years. I thought that this was very confusing. I would’ve much preferred a more chronological approach (with only a few flashbacks if needed). It seems to jump all over the place.
Alexander Revisited is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a 3-minute introduction by Oliver Stone that explains his reasons for revisiting Alexander. Otherwise, that’s it as far as special features on the disc go. I guess he didn’t want to do a commentary since he did one on the director’s cut? The case contains an insert with a personal message from Oliver Stone (you can get this text for free from http://www.myspace.com/alexanderrevisited since its just a duplicate of the message on that page) and a free movie ticked to see 300.
Stone’s made the film a bit more palatable by splitting it across 2 discs with an “intermission” between. Now as he states in the introduction, if you hated Alexander to begin with you’ll hate it more and if you loved it then you’ll love this version more. So my advice is that Alexander haters stay away from this extended cut because you’ll definitely snarl and growl at Stone. Those that like Stone’s vision will want to pick up this revisiting of it.
On the website above, Stone was asked if he’d do anything differently and he said that he’d have released this new version the first time. I don’t think that he’d be spared the critical drubbing, but the international crowd might’ve found this one more acceptable. I didn’t think that it was Stone’s masterpiece, but it wasn’t as horrible has I had been led to believe.
Old pros like Christopher Plummer and Anthony Hopkins come off best in the movie
Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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