Alexander the Average

I'm sorry, but I really liked this movie... a lot! I think it was a good movie about Alexander, albeit, the Average. The movie was not average, but Alexander himself, refreshingly, was. Though, to me, anyone whose goal in life is to conquer the world has some serious issues, that does not mean that I wanted to watch an emotional wreck for 3 hours in a movie theatre. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed this movie for its difference. I was not in for another "Gladiator" or "Brave Heart", but something that turns the tables on such characters who portray absolute and glorified manhood. This fact about the movie apparently disturbed many.

The sense I got from the movie is that Alexander's ridiculous ambition to conquer the whole of Asia along with Europe stems back to his childhood. Since babyhood, his mother, Olympias (Angelina Jolie), feeds him with her anger, spite, and hatred for his father Phillip. The boy is also apparently disturbed by his father's treatment of mother, then, further on in the movie, his mother's treatment of his father -apparently conspiring to kill his father. The result of this is an obsession to outshine his father in every way possible, which a reoccurring idea.

Alexander inherits the idea of an invasion of the Persian Empire from his father Philip whose advance force was already out in Asia in 336 B.C. Philip's campaign had the slogan of "freeing the Greeks" in Asia and "punishing the Persians" for their past sacrileges during their own invasion (a century and a half earlier) of Greece. Alexander took over the ambition, but for him, "Asia" meant even more than the existing Persian Empire as far as north-west India. He himself meant to conquer all of it, out to the Outer Ocean, the eastern edge of the world.

Alexander expected himself being so close to victory, apparently not knowing of Burma or China or the Far East. Perhaps his tutor Aristotle's ignorant lessons in geography had made the world seem mistakenly small to him. But Alexander also wished to excel as the supreme in rivalry with his great father's glory: I doubt if Philip's aims ever went so far in Asia as his ambitious son's. To outshine Philip and all previous conquerors, Alexander wanted so much more.

The sexual element in this movie was not overstated... not in the least. I also do not think Alexander (Collin Farrell) was portrayed as stereotypically "gay". He was the average norm in his time. If he was not what was considered as "normal" he would have been singled out greatly. Alexander did not have a one-way homosexual orientation, in the prevailing modern use of the term. He had sexual relations with males (including a eunuch) but also with a Persian mistress, his first wife Roxane (mother of his child) and two more Persian wives, too. In youth, his great friend was Hephaestion (Jared Leto), and surely the sexual element (frequent between young males, or and older and younger male, in Greek city-states) developed already then. It was rightly decided that sex was not the main element in this love, Alexander's greatest friendship in his lifetime. Though to be honest it did seem silly at one point when after a series of intense gazes filled with love and lust the two just gave each other a manly hug.

I think Angelina Jolie's acting is great. She did get a very good showy role as the mother consumed by venom and spite that seem to fuel her love for her son and her love for power. She is amazing in the movie and her accent is very intruiging. Colin Farrell's acting was very sensual, and did not really come through as a very good leader to me. How he managed to lead them into victories with such a disturbed personality I fail to comprehend. The battle scenes are massive and brutal, but edited in that quick-cut style that only allows you glimpses of action and makes it difficult to recognize friend from foe.

Though the sequencing was very incoherent, director Oliver Stone's biggest mistake with this movie is completely missing his target audience and skipping over them. The incredibly masculine, strong as steel, emotionally detached image is not the one portrayed. Call me ignorant, but I doubt "Gladiator" and "Brave Heart" extreme fans tolerate intense homosexuality.

If you are a person who wants to see a movie about Alexander the Great, then do not go watch this one... watch "Gladiator" again. If like me, you are a person who is not too interested in someone's attempt to conquer everything by force, then this movie may pleasantly surprise you. This movie deals with Alexander the incredibly weak average person, it does not have the traditional elements for a historical action movie, if that is what you seek.

The movie does not show Alexander at his best and greatest, but rather focuses on his fears and insecurities ruled by his mother, father, male-lovers, desire to have a son, incredibly bad hair cut and brings them to light nearly every other minute of the movie. Now pray tell me, who would not enjoy seeing Collin Farrell do that?