Shock: Oliver Stone's Movie Sucks

I'll give you a moment to retrieve your jaws from your lap. "What's that, you say?" you're befuddling. "Are you saying that Oliver Stone has failed yet again to capture the cinematic magic of The Doors or Salvador?"

This guy's best work remains the writing/rewriting he did for Conan the Barbarian.

On to the reviews. I guess we should be grateful Stone's served us up anonther ginormous turkey just in time for Thanksgiving:

The Washington Post:

If you played a word-association game with "Alexander the Great," you'd probably come up with "conqueror," "king," "warrior," "legend," "despot," "wastrel" or "killer." Unfortunately, Oliver Stone has chosen to build his epic of the Macedonian military genius around a word highly unlikely to make the list: "crybaby."

In Stone's view, this is a highly neurotic young man whose emotions, far from being repressed or disciplined as one would expect of a great soldier of the 4th century B.C., are worn on his sleeve, except, of course, that he doesn't have sleeves, the shirt still being two millennia down the road. So he wears them on his wrist -- and it's a limp one.
...

That's the weirdest aspect of the extremely weird, if absurdly expensive, movie. Stone gives himself much credit of "telling the truth" about Alexander's bisexuality as if it's some progressive badge of honor, but at the same time he can't get away from the cruelest, least imaginative stereotyping: His Alexander, as expressed through the weepy histrionics of Colin Farrell, is more like a desperate housewife than a soldier. He's always crying, his voice trembles, his eyes fill with tears. He's much less interesting, except as a basket case, than Richard Burton's Alexander of far less enlightened times -- 1956 -- in Robert Rossen's "Alexander the Great." Burton got Alexander's dissipation, but also his martial spirit; this was, after all, one of the great light-cavalry commanders of all time and a general who fought by leading his troops, sword in hand, not directing them from some safe hill. But in this one you think: Teri hostaer could kick this twerp's butt.

Stone's never been subtle. I'm surprised that Willem Dafoe's crucifixion-pose death scene wasn't underscored with the words "Christ Figure! Christ Figure!" flashing on the screen, just in case you missed it.

The NY Post's Podhoertz checks in over at The Corner:

Oliver Stone's Alexander, which opens today, isn't just bad. It's Springtime for Hitler bad. I haven't guffawed this hard since I saw Airplane for the first time 24 years ago. This is one of the colossal catastrophes of all time. At a screening on Monday night, during the death scene of Alexander's lover Hephaiston, people were screaming with laughter as Alexander made a big speech while, behind him in soft focus, Hephaiston went into a conniption fit and croaked.

Of course there's more.

posted by Ace at 12:53 PM

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