Sunday, February 13, 2005

Movie - Alexander

I actually can't think of any movie-hair that has ever been worse than Colin Farrell's in this movie. Each wig managed to disgust and revolt in new ways. And his Irish accent was a joke. I noticed that even the kid playing young-Alexander spoke like an Irishman. What a laugh.
The whole thing was fairly stupid, but then again it was no more stupid than Troy.
I guess the thing with Troy was that the studios could market Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana and Brad Pitt acting macho and taking their shirts off a lot. Whereas Alexander had Colin and friends looking girly and hugging.
I'm not surprised the american critics labeled it a flop even before it was released. On the other hand, it was pretty brave for a big Hollywood film to even attempt some of things Alexander did. The male leads in Top Gun and Fast and the Furious never exchanged rings for one thing.
I did like Jared Leto lots and lots. All that eye make-up and jewellry and long hair and pouting looks. He was extremely pretty as a greek warrior/70's glam rocker. I'm not sure of the historical accuracy of his portrayal, but it was fun to watch.
I think the film was just too choppy. Alexandar's life didn't follow a nice simple line like Russell Crowe's character in Gladiator. It would take a very smart filmaker to make a movie about Alex that was historically correct as well as being involving and clear to follow.
Alexander's sexuality was handled strangely. I don't think Oliver Stone is good with this stuff (see Midnight Express). At least the film hinted at the kind of things that Troy chose to leave out (such wimps), but it ended up desexualising Alexander, which surely wasn't the point. He keeps getting approached by guys with lustful intentions, but he never seems to bother to do anything much about it. Obviously the film was meant to suggest that Alexander was highly sexual in every direction, but it ends up giving you the totally opposite impression - that he had homosexual feelings but for no known reason (indegestion?) couldn't do anything about them so went with women instead. He never shows much love for women, but his only sex scene is with a woman, not a man. Instead of being a sexual athlete he's just a wimp who never gets around to doing what he obviously wants to do.
There is so much innuendo leading nowhere much that it lets everyone down. If the film had've just come out with it, some folks would have been annoyed by it, but everyone else could have just got on with the rest of the movie.
And one last thing - everything everyone wore in this movie was so darn clean! I've never seen such spotlessly dressed people. Are we meant to think that the ancients put on a new tunic every time they got as much as a speck of dust on themselves? Why didn't someone think to throw some much-needed mud on Colin???

2 comments:

lynn said...

Daniel Mendelsohn didn't like it either, see his essay in the New York Review of Books. (He seems to to have been very in love with Alexander as a child . . .)

Matthew said...

Thanks for that Lynn.
Daniel's review is very thorough, and right on track.