| Colin Farrell's Little Fireman |
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| written by shiftless |
January 27, 2008 - 1:31 PM PST |
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2 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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That was about the only redeeming quality of this movie, and from the best angle too. Seriously, not one single actor was believable in their role in this film. Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie have the best time with it but Colin Farrell and Val Kilmer are awful. There are odd out-of-place accents all over the place.
It is visually sumptuous of course, great color and light, but that alone can't make me enjoy a movie. The love between men in this movie is laughably false, and that only contributes to the disconnect in trying to believe in the reality presented by it. Stone also has the timeline jump back and forth numerous times throughout the film, and that made the time spent watching it all the slower.
The tired noble interpretation of the Great Man or Hero gets a lot of service here too, it would have been more interesting to try something different (why not a more unhinged megalomaniacal/sociopathic Great Man?). Even for someone who loves a sword and sandal movie, I can't recommend anyone see this, you're just not missing anything beyond an extremely nice backside. |
| Immerse yourself in this one and you'll like it.. |
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| written by Sanjer |
December 28, 2005 - 11:01 AM PST |
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3 out of 7 members found this review helpful
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| I liked this movie, as it was told through the eyes of Ptolemy, and was pretty brilliant if you compare it to other films that try to do what Oliver Stone did. I normally do not like Colin Farrell as an actor but he surprised me with this role. Most of all this movie I think accurately shows what life may have been like back then, and doesn't sugar coat or over-emphasize the stupid crap that Hollywood movie goers require to understand a period piece. There was a lot of gay themes to the picture, but it was necessary to deliver the true feelings of Alexander and other people of the time, as it was much more accepted then. Colin Farrell really did a good job with this role because you would think a guy like him would kind of drop the ball in trying to making himself a believable homo. The fight scene at the end of the picture is gnarly. Rosario Dawson has a smaller part, but she is nude in one scene, which is a plus. |
| Sorry, but no! |
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| written by TCrane |
November 28, 2005 - 7:53 PM PST |
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5 out of 6 members found this review helpful
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First of all, I'm a huge fan of Oliver Stone's past work. So I went into this one pretty hopeful that it would be another innovative take on the subject, alas, this was not to be. This film is a complete mess, to uneven acting (whoever cast that Colin guy as Alexander was obviously not paying attention to his wooden meat-headed performance), the fact that no one one could decide on what accent to use (Russian for Angelina, Scottish for everyone else?), the overblown and cliched musical score, and a desperately overwritten and confusing script. The only highlight was Anthony Hopkins, but even he wasn't enough to save this extremely confusing, un-skillfully shot 'epic'. I really, really, hate to give the work of a director I respect such a bad review, but in this case this film earned it.
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| Stone redeems himself in my mind |
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| written by brakhage |
September 2, 2005 - 8:53 AM PDT |
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4 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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I despised Stone before seeing this, but being a sucker for anything period I had to see it. I was pleasantly surprised. The theatrical cut took a hell of a beating critically, but the changes in this (shorter!) director's cut are pretty extensive, as Stone explains in one of the best commentaries I've heard on a non-Criterion DVD.
Ptolemy, ruling Egypt after Alexander's death, provides the exposition, and aside from that Stone is content to let the audience puzzle over the details. There's some interesting editing tricks that Stone uses again and again to give Alexander's life a hallucinatory glow which I think work very well. The battle scenes are extremely well put together (the use of CGI in the battle with Darius is quite good, almost comparable with some scenes from Return of the King). Even Angelina is good.
So what's the problem? It's not a masterpiece, and I think the reason why is the American obsession with childhood trauma. Too many biopics - you could argue Citizen Kane is among them - 'explain' their subjects in terms of early suffering, often at the hands of parents. (This approach is useful, but it's overused in the biopic genre recently.) Stone returns again and again to the twisted family dynamic, which is well acted and researched, but do we need Alexander to be explained? At the end of Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence - while shown to be an extraordinary personality - is as much of a mystery as at the beginning of the film. I could have done with a bit more ambiguity.
There is no ambiguity in the portrayal of - in Stone's words - Alexander's 'pansexuality', which I think doomed the film domestically but showed a lot of courage on Stone's part. Ancient mores were not our mores, but that difference is what is often so fascinating about history (HBO's 'Rome' series exploits that difference to great effect). |
| A Hero for OUR Time |
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| written by talltale |
July 23, 2005 - 7:13 AM PDT |
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4 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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Not being an Oliver Stone fan, I am beyond shocked at how much I enjoyed his ALEXANDER--first moment to last. One of the most intelligent of spectacles, the movie is almost always gorgeous to watch without hitting you over the head with its display. Even Jolie and Farrell manage their mother and son roles so well that the much-vaunted lack of age difference between the two is forgotten within moments. The battle scenes are particularly well staged, tossing viewers into their midst but also allowing them to follow and understand what is going on vis-a-vis "us against them."
Stone's screenplay is full of good talk and good ideas, little of which comes across as mannered or off-putting. The homosexuality is definitely there, though played down much more than it was in Alexander's life and time. But this is an American film, after all, and we should probably be grateful that Stone acknowledges this fact as much as he does. (American audiences of course weren't, which is one reason why the movie made much more money abroad.) Historians will quibble, but from my knowledge of history, Stone gets an awful lot right, leaving the viewer with a richer appreciation of Alexander--the man and his time--and a better understanding of why he ranks among the most heroic of heroes.
(Interestingly, the IMDB lists the theatrical version as running 175 minutes, while the DVD "Director's Cut" runs only 167. Stone has never struck me as a director who enjoys cutting down his own work, so I wonder what is going on....) |
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