Stone's 'Alexander' no damn good!?

Goodshape

It seems Oliver Stone may have messed this one up, at least if the US critics are to be believed.

Jack Matthews of the New York Daily News thought he understood why Alexander was so successful in battle: "He may have bored everyone into submission. I would have surrendered in the first of the film's nearly three long hours."

More here, from Guardian Online.

Damn shame if you ask me.. not often you get a bad Olly Stone movie. Don't suppose any one here can offer a first hand review?

koneko

I've only heard bad reports so far as well (bad editing, bad acting). Will have to wait and see for myself.

monkeyfudge

There are some great review quotes that IMDB has collected from the papers.

"Sporting a dreadful blond pageboy and a micro-mini toga ... Colin Farrell looks more like Alexander the Fabulous than Alexander the Great."

"the movie is full of brilliant highlights, and they're all in Colin Farrell's hair."

I've never liked Oliver Stone, so I wasn't really expecting much from this.

ixoy

Rottentomatoes gives it a shockingly poor 15%.

Some random quotes:

"One of the year's authentic disasters, the kind of shlockbuster that at first invites derision, then, as the hours drag on, pity."

"Oliver Stone doesn't just create trainwrecks. He knocks the train off the rails, sets it on fire, then kills every person onboard. (And takes three hours to do it.)"

"An act of hubris so huge that, in Alexander's time, it would draw lightning bolts from contemptuous gods. Today it will get sniggers from stunned critics and a collective yawn from a public unlikely to share Stone's egomania."

"Towards the end of this movie, I wanted to kill Alexander just to get it over with and go home. Even Rosario Dawson’s supposedly stunning nudity was over-hyped."

"I respect Stone as a filmmaker, but this movie is punishment rather than entertainment."

"Not just a bad movie but a bad movie of truly epic proportions."


.... Oh dear

Phil_321

Oh-oh, it's doesn't look like it's going to propel Colin Farrel to A-List status, as predicted. I wonder could this be his Waterworld :eek:.
It's a shame if it is, as it would have been cool to have an Irish guy as one of the top actors in the business.
I had been looking forward to this. Ah, well.

CuLT

It's a shame, but the trailer did look incredibly unimpressive, like if it were possible to "remix" a film, this looked like a remix of Gladiator.

And I only liked Gladiator on the first and second watch! :O

chewy

oliver stone bashing?

DapperGent

For myself every single Oliver Stone movie I've seen has been pretenious and genuinely flawed. A lot of them have been good enough in other ways to qualify as good films (Platoon, Wall Street) or enjoyable ones (Any Given Sunday, JFK) but I've never seen a film of his that didn't contain things I've found genuinely stupid and self-indulgent.

Of particular not would be the bit in Any Given Sunday where Pacino and Foxx are chatting football with cuts to a roman chariot race on the TV. This sort of needless symbolism just made me think that whoever directed it is a total asshole. Stupidy like that seems to pepper his (often unjustifiably long) films.

I haven't seen Alexander so I can't pass judgement but two things make me fear terribly for it:

1) Who the fúck thought casting Angelina Jolie as Colin Farell's mother? I mean what the fúck like? It just could never possibly work.

2) Colin Farrell on horseback shouting at soldiers in the trailer. This made me cringe even without the context to make it worse, and I'm actually one who respects the Colin's acting skillz.

Oliver Stone is one of those directors who really needs his film to be ruthlessly cut to pieces, after having Harvey Weinstein breathe down his neck for the entire shoot. Also he needs a punch in the face anytime he objects.

Mr E

The ads for Alexander over here (in Canada) have lots of positive quotes (Movie of the year, an epic blockbuster etc.). They might be from the canadian equivalents of Paul Ross, though (who gives a good review to anything epic or big budget, no matter how bad it is)

nadir

im a stone fan, id be surprised if he screwes it up, im really looking forward to it.

OfflerCrocGod

nadir wrote:

im a stone fan, id be surprised if he screwes it up, im really looking forward to it.

Then don't go and see it, here is a choice quote from the review at moviejuice.com

"I don't want to make a movie for demographics," Alexander director/writer Oliver Stone told Entertainment Weekly.

Little did we know he meant any of them.

At nearly three hours and $160 million, the best thing I can say about Alexander is that none of my money is invested in it. Oliver's backers might as well tie bundles of cash to cement blocks and drop them in the Hudson.

It was 30 minutes into this movie before I had the slightest clue regarding what anyone was talking about. And it was 31 minutes in when I decided I didn't care.

What's with Colin Farrell's bad dye job? Before Alexander conquered half the world he evidently conquered half the world's supply of L'Oréal, various Southern California beaches, and a number of David Lee Roth videos.

"By Zeus, I'm amped over the primo hodads, bra!," he said. "Before we battle the savages let's go toes-on-the-nose with these posers. As the Gods are my witness, Cowabunga, savages!"

Angelina Jolie is Colin's mom, even though these two are separated by only one year and numerous bizarre exchanges of bodily fluid with Billy Bob Thornton. Whenever Angelina opens her mouth you're in store for two uncut pages of rambling, pointless monologue about how great Alexander is.

I'm glad someone thinks so.

A horribly miscast Val Kilmer has only one good eye which makes him the envy of this audience - except for the one good eye.

Anthony Hopkins earns another payment on that beach house thanks to his role as an aging Dr. Loomis on the hunt for psycho-killer Michael Myers. Hopkins wanders about his terrace as minions water scores of obviously plastic plants amidst a selection of statues that look barely authentic enough to stand in your local Chucky Cheese.

There is a train wreck of conflicting accents in this melting potted mess, none of them even remotely local to the setting. Colin speaks with an Irish twang, Kilmer sounds like he could welcome you to Wal*Mart, and Angelina seems to hail from the Persian shores of Transylvania.

Alexander certainly favored the musical theater of his era, not to mention the boys in the chorus. You have Colin looking like Cameron Diaz and his sometime lover and warrior-partner Jared Leto the spitting image of Jennifer Connelly. I'd root for these boys to kiss, but it's too much girl-on-girl action.

So Alexander counsels with his key generals, Peterallenicus, Willandgraceicus, Clayaikenicus, Eltonjohnicus, and Seacrestouticus. It's time for battle!

"Our armies are free to clash - except for their colors," says Jared Leto as he and Alexander move little military figures across a terrain map of Nordstrom's annual one-day men's sale.

By Zeus, if you see Alexander standing before his troops, rest assured the fighting will not commence until Colin completes a long-ass pep talk so leisurely his enemies literally surrender out of sheer boredom.

Always fear an army of pretty men in skirts, I advise my troops. By the sweet breath of Aphrodite, if they can't conquer the world at least they can make it safe for Cher. Never before have I seen an army move into battle and belt out the song "YMCA" at the same time, let alone in flawless four-part harmony.

Rarely does Alexander cover his two-tone gold locks, and when he does it's with a helmet that suggests he's out to battle a Shriner's convention.

Rosario Dawson, the manliest man in this man's army, is Colin's wife. She can't decide whether she wants to cut Colin's throat or have feisty sex. These two were the Liza and David of their day, for Zeus's sake!

Oh the pain of it all! Frequent warring results in acres of injured extras - who look less harmed by battle than by some funky craft service.

Behind the scenes, word has it that Colin bedded everything with at least two legs and a scarcity of self-esteem, including a bevy of actors, locals, and one very shy camel who assumed the offer to "hump" was some form of physical therapy.

"By the glorious man-meat of Apollo," Colin says, "this film is creaking to its final scene!"

Alexander makes Troy look like Gone with the Wind. It is beyond bad, well into drinking game bad. I'm talking hugely, monstrously, comically bad. This must be what Hell is like, by Hades!

Alexander the Great? More like Alexander the Unbearable.

Ooops I only meant to quote a line but I just kept on going......it's the funniest film review I've read for quite a while

D!ve^Bomb!

i'm not a fan of stone tbh, i couldn't sit throught all of JFK and i didn't know what the **** was happening in Any Given Sunday!! what a shít film that was... platoon isn't too bad.. the soundtrack is better... an Colin Farell is a complete muppet scumbag!!

In all an anyways

pickarooney

Whatever happened to reviewers reviewing films instead of bumbling on for reams in a "hey look at me, I'm a funny guy with a type-a-writer" stylee?
If you were that amusing you'd be writing comedies and rolling in wodge.

Playboy

Imo the homosexual content + the fact that alexander conquered the world and he wasnt American is why its getting such bad reviews. I dont think Oliver Stone can make a movie as bad as they are saying Alexander is.

rivers

i agree with the last post, even stone's mediocre films are good by any other standards,
all the reviews seem to be focusing on colin's hair, i havent read a review yet that seems balanced and not just out to rag on stone...
harry on aint it cool said it's really good, as did empire magazine

shotamoose

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Then don't go and see it, here is a choice quote from the review at moviejuice.com

Good God, that was one of the most annoying things I've ever read. Enough with the damn puns already. Makes me really hope Alexander isn't as bad as everyone says. But it probably is.

Oliver Stone's 'Salvador' is one of my favourite films, so I think anything he makes deserves a look. If only he had cast Ryan Phillippe as Alexander though ...