Alexander - An epic failure of judgment

(Herald rating: *)

In an attempt to bind this biopic of Alexander the Great together, director Oliver Stone has as frequent narrator, Anthony Hopkins.

He's Ptolemy, a former general of the conqueror's army, who, 40 years after his leader's death is recounting the good old days of trans-continental empire building.

He delivers great scrolls of exposition while wandering the legendary library of Alexandria, fondling the statues and dictating to buff blokes jotting it down in an apparently ancient form of shorthand.

Quite aside from how clumsy a device it is, especially in a film that likes to leap about Alexander's 33 years with little regard for logic, it speaks of the movie's own odd effect.

Watching Alexander is like being dragged into a library and having someone shout the random contents of what might be an interesting book about an impressive life from the next aisle, probably between the psychology and history sections.

It's one way to tell a story, sure, but hardly involving. You tend to want to shout back. Stuff like "Yes. He's got issues. Get on with it. Hurry up and invade somewhere." Or leave early, knowing that at the end you'll be none the wiser.

And is it too much to ask that a three-hour sweeping epic about a guy with a very big army be a little entertaining?

Yes, there are two big battle scenes, which are marginally more impressive than their CGI supported forerunners in predecessor Troy and they don't stint on blood and mayhem - or eyeliner, for that matter.

The Battle of Gaugamela, where Alexander's outnumbered forces routed the Persian Army is something to see. So is the encounter in the forests of India, where Greek horses come up against rampaging elephants, all with faint surreal visual traces of Stone's Vietnam movies.

But they only impress for their violence as the movie fails to make us invest anything in the characters. Which is as much as a defect of script, as cast and casting.

As Alexander there's Farrell and unfortunate blond hairdo, reminding why the mullet is the haircut of the gods. There's Jolie with her Transylvanian accent as his reptilian mother Olympias, who keeps her vase of pet snakes handy at all times and reminds that Oedipus was an ancestor. And there's Kilmer as Alexander's father, King Philip, a one-eyed bitter and twisted drunk.

Kilmer is unintentionally hilarious, Jolie only slightly less so, but at least she's memorable for a campness that the rest of the film sorely lacks.

Farrell? Which one's he? There's a dark intensity to his performance and he sure can look wild-eyed and dangerous in those battle charges. But so far as portraying legendary figures go, his loyal Bucephalus has more charisma.

Much has been made of Stone including Alexander's equal-opportunity love life.

But what's worse is that there's no fire in any of his relationships. Hephaistion (Jared Leto) might be his childhood friend, comrade and the love of his life, but all he ever seems to get is a manly hug, poor guy.

Whereas there's a bizarre bit of heterosexual coupling with Roxane (Rosario Dawson), the Bactrian princess he takes as a bride, in a scene that seems to have escaped Conan the Barbarian (which Stone co-wrote).

It all comes back to one question: How can a movie about such a busy bisexual man be this boring? With his CV reading "conquered most of known world by 25", you would think Alexander might inspire some thoughts of the motivational kind.

It does. Simply that life is too short for movies this long, this incoherent, this deep and meaningless.

CAST: Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer Anthony Hopkins,

DIRECTOR: Oliver Stone

RATING: R13 (violence, sex scenes)

RUNNING TIME: 177 mins

SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas