| THE KING OF NOTHING : Oliver Stone's Alexander [3/10] |
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| Wednesday, 16 February 2005 | |
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A lumbering, laborious would-be epic, Alexander - with Colin Farrell miscast as the Macedonian emperor - succeeds only in wasting the time of everyone involved, including the audience. The ever-erratic Stone proves a poor match for the material: as well as directing, he takes a co-writing credit (along with Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis), and in neither field do his abilities rise to the daunting challenge presented by Alexander's tumultuous 32-year lifespan. We end up with a string of unsatisfactory episodes which dip in and out of our hero's complicated family history and his globetrotting military exploits, and which somehow make this remarkable series of spicy intrigues and spectacular adventures into dull, stodgy, plodding fare. The overriding impression is that Stone shot a huge amount of footage, then realised he was faced with the impossible task of stitching it all together into a reasonably coherent sub-three-hour whole. He uses a narrator: Anthony Hopkins looking ancient as the venerable historian Ptolemy, who in his youth witnessed Alexander's exploits at first hand. Stone intersperses the narrative with stilted sequences in which Ptolemy is seen recalling the plot to his scribes in 4th-century Alexandria, and the character also provides copious voiceover to guide us through the various segments. It doesn't work: despite boasting a couple of decent (albeit sub-Lord of the Rings) battle sequences Alexander feels very much like an illustrated, extended history lesson - and since Stone doesn't really ever manage to engage his 'students', at the end you're not actually that much the wiser. It's hard to keep track of who's who, and who's doing what, why, when and where - to the accompaniment of wailing Vangelis muzak on the soundtrack, the screen is filled with an endless gallery of warriors, schemers, politicians, hangers-on, wives, servants, children, and so on. But characterisation is skimpy, the dialogue relentlessly clunky and only the hammiest turns (Angelina Jolie vamping for all she's worth as Alexander's mother Olympias) make much of an impact or provide anything remotely resembling fun. And fun is what one suspects Baz Luhrmann might deliver in spades if his Alexander project (starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Nicole Kidman) ever gets underway - now improbable, given the paltry US box-office returns for Stone's galumphing attempt. The film seems unlikely to salvage its hefty pricetag by scoring in 'overseas' territories - a trick managed by two of 2004's most underrated post-Gladiator historical epics, Troy and King Arthur. Alexander often comes across like a combination of the pair - the ancient-world escapades of Wolfgang Petersen's picture, plus the 'real-story-of-semi-mythical-warrior-monarch' angle from Antoine Fuqua's movie. But it falls far short of either predecessor - which makes it unfortunate that Alexander and his pals keep constantly banging on and on about their admiration for Troy's Achilles. That's the one area where Alexander scores over Troy: Petersen undeniably soft-pedals the affection between Achilles and his 'cousin' Patroclus - but Stone is explicit that the petulant Alexander's most vivid passion was felt for his brother-in-arms Hephaestion (Jared Leto). Whatever else he flubs, Stone at least devotes plenty of time to emphasising the strength of the love between the pair. So it's all the more frustrating that while Alexander and Hephaestion exchange embraces, hugs, and meaningful looks, that's pretty much as far as their physical relationship goes. But when Alexander marries the enigmatic Roxane, Stone shows their love-making in surprisingly frank detail - even though Roxane has virtually nothing to do for the rest of the film. Perhaps inevitably, this thankless role is filled by striking American actress Rosario Dawson who really should get herself a different agent: this must be the umpteenth time she's found herself in a film and a part which provide a lousy showcase for her considerable talents. She's not alone in being so insultingly underused, of course: capable veterans including Christopher Plummer, Brian Blessed and Tim Pigott-Smith flit in and out looking dandy in their expensive costumes but nevertheless visibly bemused by Stone's empty bombast - Pigott-Smith has an especially baffling and non-sequitur 'haruspex' scene in which he cursorily examines the (cold?!) entrails of a recently-slaughtered bull. It doesn't take any kind of special divination to know Alexander's fate, however - from Farrell's first scene it's clear that once again (only weeks after A Home at the End of the World) this promising performer has again ended up in a role singularly ill-suited to his talents. And although the film's half-time hiatus is most welcome - it also serves to rouse dozing audience-members - it is a little unfortunate that Stone introduces it by flashing up the title of the last film in which Farrell did really good work, Intermission. Searingly convincing as a small-time Irish thug in that low-budget charmer, a dyed-blond Farrell looks all at sea as the ruler of the 'known world' the centre of this much larger canvas. Even his voice proves unequal to the task, time and again breaking on the bellow. Neil Young |
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