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Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Anthony Hopkins ... see more see more... , Rosario Dawson , Christopher Plummer , Tim Pigott-Smith , Connor Paolo , Gary Stretch , John Kavanagh , Nick Dunning , Marie Meyer , Elliot Cowan , Joseph Morgan , Ian Beattie , Denis Conway , Neil Jackson , Rory McCann , Raz Degan , Annelise Hesme , Feodor Atkine , Brian Blessed , Brian McGrath , Mick Lally , Stéphane Ferrara , Jonathan Rhys Meyers , Peter Williamson , Matthew Powell , Fiona O'Shaughnessy , Jaran Ngamdee , Bin Bunluerit , Toby Kebbell , David Bedella , Jessie Kamm , Patrick Carroll , Morgan Christopher Ferris , Robert Earley , Aleczander Gordon , Garrett Lombard , Chris Aberdein , Erol Sander , Tadhg Murphy , Francisco Bosch , Tsouli Mohammed , Harry Kent , Suzanne Bullock , Kate Elouise , Gillian Grueber , Michelle Lukes , Anjali Mehra , Anthony Jean Marie Kurt , Marta Barahona , Monica Zamora , Benny Maslov , Tania Matos , Leighton Morrison , Isaac Mulllins , Monica Perego , Rab Affleck , Sam Green , Michael Dixon , Laird Macintosh , Jean Le Duc

The fourth film to chronicle the life of fourth-century B.C. ruler Alexander the Great, Oliver Stone's Alexander stars Colin Farrell as the titular Macedonian conqueror. The film follows the young kin... read more read more...g as he leads his forces on a bloody empirical conquest across the known world, taking large parts of Asia and the Middle East to amass a giant empire, all by the time he turned 25. Anthony Hopkins co-stars as Ptolemy I along with Rosario Dawson as Roxane, Angelina Jolie as Olympias, Jared Leto as Hephaistion, Val Kilmer as King Philip II, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Cassander. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Flixster Users

43% liked it

214,755 ratings

Critics

16% liked it

194 critics

R, 2 hr. 55 min.

Directed by: Oliver Stone

Release Date: November 24, 2004

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DVD Release Date: August 2, 2005

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Stats: 9,811 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (9,811)

  • cosmo313
    February 9, 2012
    cosmo313
    Note: this review covers the theatrical version of the film.

    Oliver Stone's epic portrait of one of the greatest figures in history had the potential to be as epic, mythic, and great as the person it is about. What it turned out ot be instead was a bloated, hollow, unfocused me... read moress filled with bland dialogue and some really out there and stilted performances. It's certainly not for lack of trying though.

    For this should have been masterpiece, Stone at least assembled an awesome and talented cast that includes Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Anthony Hopkins, Rosario Dawson, and an all too short appearance by Christopher Plummer. Farrell was a decent enough choice, but I' not sure I really like the characterization all that much. Kilmer was okay, but seemed to be channelling his take on Jim Morrison a bit much. Jolie started off fine, but could have stood to dial it down quite a bit, and go for something more subtle and nuanced. Same goes for Rosario, and once again, Stone makes a film where women unfortunately get the short end of the stick. Hopkins was okay, but seemed better suited for a better film. Leto was likewise fair, but sorta came off as a bit too fey.

    I liked that the film tried to tackle many facets of Alexander the Great's life, personality, and career, and had some decent themes to it, but it all comes off as really overblown, a tad pretentious, and actually rather boring and meandering. For someone as colorful as Alexander, this shouldn't be the case. The battle scenes are epic, really well done, and some of the best parts of the film, but sadly they are too few and far between, which is a problem when the film has a 175 minute running time and all the other stuff, which good at times, becomes really difficult to sit through.

    I will give the film props for having a historical advisor on board (though oddly uncredited for whatever reason), and the costumes, period details, and all that are top notch, as are the cinematography, and Vangelis's score (which is atypical of what he usually does). Overall though, I'm not on board, even though I really wanted to be. I'd like to think that I knew what Stone was going for, but I can't really figure it out. Maybe I need to see one of the other cuts he came out with, since those are supposedly better.

    As this one stands though, it's not a failure, but it's still an average, out of control and unbalanced mess.
  • clintervin
    October 13, 2011
    clintervin
    The version of Alexander I'm reviewing is the second or director's cut, which may or may not have some bearing on whether I influence anyone else as to whether or not they want to view this film. To be concise, this really stunk. It's a ponderous train wreck of a film, and I coul... read moredn't wait for it to end. Whether or not Oliver Stone took liberties with the truth as we know it is irrelevant. It is an incoherent, terrible movie. It is dull and ridiculously over-acted, especially by Farrell and Jolie. Normally I like Anthony Hopkins, Rosario Dawson, and even Val Kilmer sometimes but not much here. I felt sympathy for Dawson's character as well as the actress herself.

    The action plays something like the sword and sandal epics of the 1950s, and the battlefield scenes are passable. The "rousing" speech delivered by Farrell on the eve of battle is silly and pretentious though, just like this over burdened film. Stone does aim high, much too high, and maybe that's why this movie crashes. Alexander's story is a compelling human as well as historical story, but Stone doesn't do him justice here.

    Many say that the longer, final cut is markedly better, that it is more coherent. I don't know, not having seen it, but in the interest of fairness, I do not dismiss it. If you are into epics like Gladiator, Troy, and Kingdom of Heaven, you may want to consider watching it. If you end up with an Oedipal complex though, don't say I didn't warn you.
  • TheDudeLebowski65
    September 19, 2011
    TheDudeLebowski65
    Being a die hard history buff, I was quite looking forward to seeing this. Well, when I did I was very disappointed in what I saw. Alexander is a total mess of a film. Everything about the film misplaced. Oliver Stone crafts a film that's based more on fiction than fact. The film... read more is filled with inaccuracies. Considering there is so much documentation on Alexander the Great at hand, you'd think they would at least create a film based on facts, right? But this is Hollywood, so they'll take as much creative liberties as they want without staying true to the historical facts. There are some truly dreadful performances here such as Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer. Colin Farrell isn't that great either, but he's better than Kilmer and Jolie. Alexander has decent action scenes, nothing great, and the film doesn't really do anything exciting. I thought that Troy was a superior film and that Alexander missed the mark in trying to deliver epic battles scenes. Considering that this film is after all based on Alexander the Great, they could've done something spectacular with the film. Instead, the film misses the mark, and fails to delivers anything grand and interesting on-screen. As a person who's interested in history, I really can't recommend this film because it's really flawed, and above all it has awful acting, and the film drags far too long for this story to be told. If it would've been told right, then the length of this film wouldn't have been a problem, but this is a badly acted and directed mess that just fails to get the facts right.
  • fb729949618
    July 31, 2011
    fb729949618
    Don't remember much of this movie, only that it made me pretty tired.
  • paulsandberg
    May 13, 2010
    paulsandberg
    wow is this film aweful. I friend gave me the "final cut" - what would have been appropriate in such a cut would have been an empty film case!

    Every single aspect of this film reaks, bad acting (except perhaps Angelina Jolie, who here finally finds a role in which her botoxed... read more lips look apropos), terible makeup (what the heck are all these manly men doing with dark eyeshadow?) and "epic" battle scenes that are nothing but a mess of masses. If the point of the excercise was to show that war was hell and not glamerous, but simply carnage on a wide spread scale, then why bother adding all the titles ("left phalanx, etc.)?

    Stone's direction in this "final cut" is all the more mystifying - jumping back and forth - "Bablyon 9 years earlier" - was simply lazy. He could have easily connected the dots with flashbacks (as he attemped to show with the catacomb scene where Philip showed his son Alexander wall paintings of mythological events that showed the gods messing with the fate of men).

    The entire enterprise seemed as pointless as Alexanders' continuing to quest into India after conquering Babylon; including the vapid, overly long, tag ending where Anthony Hopkins waxes poetic (in theory) about the titan of a man, who was loved, misunderstood, hated, misunderstood, idolized, and did I mention misunderstood? It was comical watching the scribe following Hopkins around the garden, with the scribes' second holding the ink pot - you've got to be kidding me!!!!! Lost in the detail - perhaps that would have been a better title.
  • Gx7
    December 3, 2008
    Gx7
    Alexander Revisited (DVD Final Cut)

    Macedonian Left, Macedionian Right, Macedonian Center! I enjoyed watching the battlescenes in this film!
    Although it is said to be historically inaccurate, and the jumping from present to past was used too much, I still found it to b... read moree a good movie. Alexanders other relationships in the film just made me feel all weird and awkward, it took me a while to get used to the idea. The cast was good, the story I found somewhat weird but entertaining anyway. I havent seen the original film version so Im not sure if thats why some people rated this low.
  • allan913
    October 4, 2008
    allan913
    A times flawed and very over-acted, which could of become both Colin Farrells oscar demanding performance and Oliver Stone's finest hour or three has just become a brutal, man on man and paranoid historical epic
  • DragonEyeMorrison
    July 6, 2008
    DragonEyeMorrison
    This was also a joke....right?
  • ajaymuthecooldevils
    May 1, 2008
    ajaymuthecooldevils
    I have read so many bad reviews about this movie, and that isn't a myth... Alexander was a historic movie about the world conquerer, Alexander The Great. But the story of this movie didn't make very well... Sometimes it is so long and looks that it wants to show us how detailed i... read moret is, and sometimes it goes to fast without any explanation... But the fact is that this movie is so boring... I even yawn so many when seeing this movie, but luckily for this movie, I stay awake... Oliver Stone, i don't know why he is so famous but as far as the movies that directed by him that I already seen, it's just a standard. No good even excellent, but just standard.. Sometimes even worse... Maybe he have a decrease years after years for his movies.... But one that I admire is how he can get so many stars for this movie... Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Rosario Dawson, Anthony Hopkins, even my favorite Jonathan Rhys Meyers also played in this movie, which I also shocked... But choosing Colin Farrell as Alexander, and Jared Leto as Hephahaitos were a mistake... Their act was terrible... Colin looks very gay in this story, yet Leto acts was like a beginner student in the acting academy.... And the most disturbing scene in this movie was when Alexander lost to a battle in India.. When it was a bloody battle, but I thought you don't need to color the background of the scenes with red color too... It just makes me sick... And Oliver should gave another acting lesson for all of the cast of this movie, because most of them were looks very clumsy. Maybe he thinks that many peoples involved in this movie, even they have so many people attend in one scene but it just looks like that Oliver met them in the street and say that 'I give you few dollars if you want to join us in this the next hit movie', but he was wrong.. This movie was too far to be said as good, even as the same story like 'Troy'. Not because Troy have Brad Pitt so Alexander can have Jolie, but even the story itself is a real jerk... I just hope that if Alexander The Great wants to be filmed again, none of the crews that works for this movie joins again on that movie... Because nothing better on that movie, except Jolie, Kilmer, and Hopkins I thought. But a big no for Colin Farrell...
  • bhobbs1985
    February 10, 2008
    bhobbs1985
    The movie itself was great. Actors did good, and it was very close to what they say is historically accurate. The battle scenes were amazing too.
    The narration, rather then actual showing what happend kind of sucks - but, there was really no way around it.
    Alexander should be ... read morehappy he got put in a hollywood film, because other then being portrayed in a movie - he really was not that great.
    And he certaintly did not out due Achelles, like he wanted to so bad in his lifetime.
    He was a power hungry, land hungry fool, who kept nothing in his life in check or even in stone, for his entire kingdom fell only years after his death.

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Critic Reviews

Peter Travers
March 6, 2005
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Though the battles have the blood-and-sinew bravado you expect from Oliver Stone, this three-hour buttnumbathon is hamstrung by a hectoring grandiosity, not new to Stone, and a nod toward caution, whi...

Rex Reed
December 10, 2004
Rex Reed, New York Observer

A lunk-headed train wreck that looks like a tag sale in a 323 B.C. supermarket in old Peking. Full Review

Andrew Sarris
December 10, 2004
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer

At a reported cost of $155 million, Alexander qualifies as a super-spectacle in every respect but one -- namely in its neurotic, confused and sexually ambidextrous hero. Full Review

Anthony Lane
November 30, 2004
Anthony Lane, New Yorker

Sluggish, unsmiling, and almost as limp as the feather fans with which our heroes are gently aerated on their trip to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Richard Roeper
November 30, 2004
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

It's just a wild, glorious, wacky mess that I found really entertaining. Full Review

Rick Groen
November 26, 2004
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

Call it Alexander the Grate, because, over the marathon of its three-hour running time, this wonky epic really does get on your nerves. Full Review

Desson Thomson
November 24, 2004
Desson Thomson, Washington Post

It's boring here and exciting there. And it's almost always goofy. Full Review

Stephen Hunter
November 24, 2004
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

Alexander, as expressed through the weepy histrionics of Colin Farrell, is more like a desperate housewife than a soldier. Full Review

Mike Clark
November 24, 2004
Mike Clark, USA Today

This is Stone's weakest movie of the past 20 years, and it's unlikely to make any kind of blip. Full Review

Geoff Pevere
November 24, 2004
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

Not just a bad movie but a bad movie of truly epic proportions. Full Review

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