BEFORE: Colin Farrell carries over from "Epic", into a film that actually IS an epic, and I've got time for one more film before we take off for Atlantic City for a couple of days.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Troy" (Movie #1,588)
AFTER: Well, this was three hours spent getting to know Alexander "the Great", and I suspect know that such a nickname was self-imposed, and after all that time, what did I learn about him? That he had daddy issues. Oh, and mommy issues. And a complicated relationship with his wife, which probably wasn't helped by the presence of his boyfriend.
Yeah, things were different back in the day for the Greeks, and later the Macedonians. Men got married and had kids, because if they didn't, then there wouldn't be any new Greeks or Macedonians. But the love between two men was considered more "pure", more true. Women were second-class citizens, after all, certainly not the equal of men, so why should the love between a man and a woman be held in high regard? People in the 20th century had to fight for gay rights and marriage equality, but back in the ancient world, it seems it wasn't even an issue.
This puts a different spin on Alexander's conquering of Persia, India, etc. He seemed to like the pretty boys he found there as well, so one wonders if he wasn't always thinking there were even prettier boys over the next horizon. Hindu culture has the hijras, which sort of function as a third gender, and some Eastern cultures have as many as five gender classes, so this film implies this was a new playground for Alexander. Oh, you thought he went there to conquer people and increase the size of the Macedonian Empire? Is that what your history teacher told you? That's adorable.
As always, I take off points for non-linear storytelling and excessive flashbacks. Since Ptolemy is narrating Alexander's story in the past tense, most of the film is a flashback, and by jumping back to "9 years earlier", that puts a flashback inside a flashback. Uh-uh, you shouldn't do that. Even worse, cutting back to scenes that show Alexander butting heads with King Philip, and detailing how Philip met his end and Alexander took the throne don't add any insight to Alexander's conquering of Persia and India. Do they? I didn't see any connection.
Most Hollywood films follow a three-act structure - it should have been easy to break down Alexander's life into three sections: childhood, the middle part where he fights with Philip and takes the throne, and then all the conquering. All the flashing back suggests that at least one of these segments was deemed to be not so interesting, and considering how it got mixed in with part 3, I'm guessing it was the middle part. Add in all the cool battle scenes you want, it won't make up for the boring flashbacks.
Also starring Angelina Jolie (last seen in "A Mighty Heart"), Val Kilmer (last heard in "Planes"), Jared Leto (last seen in "The Thin Red Line"), Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "Thor: The Dark World"), Rosario Dawson (last seen in "Zookeeper"), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (last seen in "Velvet Goldmine"), Rory McCann, Gary Stretch, Ian Beattie, Neil Jackson, Jon Kavanagh, with cameos from Christopher Plummer (last seen in "The New World"), Brian Blessed (last heard in "The Pirates: Band of Misfits"), Tim Piggott-Smith (last seen in "The Remains of the Day")
RATING: 3 out of 10 battle elephants
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