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A flop on the scale of Alexander may have signalled the end of the career of a lesser director than Oliver Stone. The facts are irrefutable ($35 million US gross compared to $155 million budget, and an almost across-the-board critical mauling), but Alexander does not deserve its truly horrendous reputation. Let me qualify that by saying that it is extremely flawed, but while the film may be erratic and messy at times, it is still quite an experience. The reception that the film received upon release prompted Stone to return to the cutting room and emerge with this new version, which unlike most director's cuts is actually shorter than the original - there are about 9 minutes of new scenes but 18 minutes of previously existing material has been excised. The most obvious difference however is the restructuring, which means that the narrative now goes back and forth between Alexander's youth and his later conquests. I highly doubt that anyone who hated the first version will like this one as it's not a big change, but I would say that this cut presents a slight improvement, mainly in its pacing.
The film gets a lot right, but there are plenty of problems, some of which no amount of editing can solve. For a film whose DVD cover claims to be an 'action-packed epic', it's certainly rather light on actual action. There are in fact only two battle scenes, albeit pretty impressively staged ones, and the film would benefit from another in the middle (and there is no shortage of battles to pick from the real Alexander's life). Secondly, there is a strange mishmash of accents: Alexander (Colin Farrell) and his Macedonian pals are Irish, which didn't bother me, but Alexander's mother (played, implausibly, by Angelina Jolie) talks like Count Dracula. Admittedly her character is meant to be a foreigner but her accent still seemed out of place. Aside from the accent her performance is actually surprisingly strong, as is Val Kilmer as the overbearing father, and Farrell is perfectly satisfactory in my view. He perhaps lacks the magnetism of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, but is better than Brad Pitt in Troy or Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven.
The film looks amazing, thanks to some excellent cinematography and visual effects. The occasional set looks slightly artificial but they are only momentary lapses. Certainly, when compared to something like Troy, Alexander looks far more gritty and realistic, although it doesn't quite attain the Ridley Scott air of apparent historical authenticity. It's particularly distracting that most of the men, especially the rather limp Hephaistion (Jared Leto, Alexander's "soulmate"), wear more eyeliner than the women. The femininity and bisexuality of some of the male characters caused plenty of controversy before the film's release, but in fact it's not particularly prominent, and is made even less so in this stripped-down cut. Indeed, to call this a 'director's cut' seems strange, because it feels more like the version that should have been released in cinemas the first time round: it's shorter, for one, and the references to sexuality are mostly absent (for which Stone has been criticised, with some accusing him of submitting to outside pressure). The leaner nature of this version does present some other problems that didn't exist before; for example, most extraneous characters have been virtually reduced to ciphers, with nearly all character development removed. In addition, the second battle seems to begin too suddenly with no build-up, which I didn't notice before, although I couldn't say for sure whether anything has been excised at that point.
The extras
Annoyingly, the 2-disc edition of Alexander houses the theatrical cut, whereas this director's cut disc is almost vanilla, containing just a director's commentary. Surely normally most of the extras would come with the director's cut of a film (which is the case with the Region 1 DVDs)? Anyway, the commentary is quite interesting, although Stone concentrates more on the actual history than the filming, which I would have preferred. He also makes some questionable comments like claiming that he found that modern audiences can't cope with films longer than two and a half hours. How do you explain the success of Titanic and The Lord of the Rings then, Oliver? He does make plenty of worthwhile points, though, including heaping praise on Vangelis' majestic score.
The summary
I am sometimes guilty of being too lenient with films that others have slated. However, in the case of Alexander, I genuinely like the film a lot. For me, it fulfils the main brief of a historical epic - to transport you into a seamless ancient world and hold your attention for almost three hours. To put my opinion in context, however, I am a big fan of epics and find the subject matter very interesting, so the film won't hold the same appeal for everyone.
