Alexander

Alexander is Oliver Stone's epic biopic about Alexander of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great. It stars Colin Farrell as Alexander, hair significantly bleached, as we trace his life from youth horse-riding prodigy to driven conquerer of Persia and other places east. Val Kilmer and Angelina Jolie play his parents, the loutish Philip and poisonous Olympias.
The story the movie portrays is framed by an elderly Ptolemy, one of Alexander's generals, played by Anthony Hopkins. He is dictating the story of Alexander to a scribe and interjects summaries of things that happen off screen as we jump about through Alexander's life. While this does allow Stone's screenplay to cover larger stretches of Alexander's life, it leaves the movie feeling disjointed. We don't even cover Alexander's first steps as a conquerer, putting down rebellion in Greece and then taking Asia Minor and Egypt. We go right into his big showdown battle with the Persians. While that certainly is a seminal event in the young conqueror's life, we don't build to it at all. It's just there.
From that point, the movie alternatively races and drags with very uneven pacing and a lot of scenery-chewing acting. I just don't think Stone was working at his best during this movie.
There are some things that are pursued in this movie that I think are good choices to cover: his homosexual love for Hephaistion, his grumbling army as they are called upon to conquer and conquer and conquer (all the way to India) without getting a chance to go home, his odd choice of marriage to Roxane rather than a more important Persian princess. The trouble is, none of this seems all that well executed (except maybe for the near mutiny of his army). In the end, I was pretty disappointed with the movie even though it's clear that a number of the actors in it clearly worked their asses off, notibly Colin Farrell, who seems to have kept a low profile (in movie roles) for most of the year.
I give the movie a C-.