ALEXANDER

I very much wanted to like this film, but suspension of disbelief has its limits. And when 3 hours into the film a theater full of adults watching Alexander's solliloquy during the climatic death scene of his best friend and companion burst with rolling-in-the-aisles laughter, those limits are crossed. A witty remark overheard afterwards likened the scene to a good SNL skit-- probably
not Oliver Stone's intended reaction. But with this movie, the ham-handed execution of all attempts at drama left one feeling like the slapstick routine of Colin Farrell crying tears in reverie at the grand future of the empire out his window, while his lover comically twitched in convulsions behind him, was par for the course.

"Alexander" botches history, botches cultural understanding, botches good storytelling and botches basic hair bleaching. Granted, I set a high expectation for the film, but only because it tells one of the greatest tales of conquest in human history and thought that would be hard to overshadow. Unfortunately I never saw coming that Stone could portray one of the most charismatic, unifying leaders of all time as an Oedipal Greenwich village queen with an irish accent wearing a wig cut from the scalp of fitness celebrity John Basedow. My bad.

Above all, Stone's script most egregiously mauls the story of Alexander's relationships to his parents, even moreso than the boorish approach to the culturally out-of-context assumptions of homosexuality. At the end of the day, I'd suggest that if you want a rousing cinematic performance of ancient world leadership and perserverance, stick to "Gladiator." And if you want to learn how and why Alexander conquered the known world, stick to the History Channel.

Although this movie does give a chance to see Rosario Dawson as Alexander's wife show off her truly legendary breasts. I don't know how the History Channel is going to match that.