So the review you have all been waiting for, Alaxander - the director's ct
Now since I haven't seen the normal version, I won't be able to compair the two. What I did notice looking at the back covers of both, was that the director's cut is 167 min while the theatrical version was 175 min. Now right off the bat this says something to me. Usually directors cuts are longer than the normal version, due to studois wanting to release a film that takes up less time so that it could be played more and frankly most people just can't st still for that long. For example all 3 of the lord of the rings director cuts had about 30-40 extra minutes of footage. Dune had an extra 2 hours of footage.
Usually if a director decided to just cut footage its because they watched it and realized it blew.
But not to go into this film with preconcieved notions........
So alaxander blew.
To start it was long and not just in time, but it felt long. I can't tell you how thankful I was not to have to sit through another 8 minutes of it like those who saw the normal version did.
The writing in the film was just plain aweful. The lines were horrible. The "kick ass" speachs designed to inspire courage in the army just before battle were long and dull. None of which had even a sprinkeling of the force you felt when Mel spoke in Braveheart, or even what little was said in "Troy". To make matters worse, they often did something stupid with the sound durring some of the speaches so you could't even hear what Alaxander was saying. Just genuis, I can see him talking but you've covered it up with horse sounds and wheel moving sounds. What a directing inspiration.
Which brings us to the directing part. I don't think I can describe in words how baddly it was directed. Scenes were all out of time, now normally this can have a cool effect, but in Alaxander, characters were not developed and hardly introduced. So placing scenes out of sequence for the most part left me asking, "who is this guy? No matter he is dead now." The film ended up being very confusing, not due to a complicated sequence of interactions meant to leave the audience stumped, but because it was a bunch of almost unrelated bits strung together with only a "bablyon 10 years prior" tag to bridge them. Ugh.
To the actor's credit, I beleive most of them did as well as they could with what they were given.
To Oliver Stone's credit, I will never willingly go see another one of his films. I never realized how baddly of a director he was until I reallt stoped to think about it.
And finally I'll list a few minor annoyances:
Alaxander was gay or bisexual. Now homosexuality was acceptable back in this era and I don't know if there was any historical records which would indicate Alexander was gay. To me it seemed like it was done more as a publicity stunt. We didn't need to see Alex checking out the pretty boys in his ranks time and time again. This was supposed to be a kick ass war film. Thats not to say a kick ass hero can't be gay, but if he's going to be gay, make him gay and get on with it. We don't need to see hours of sexual inuendo and hints Alex likes boys.
Though I guess I can't really blame this universe's alexander for crossing the fence so to speak due to my next issue.
All the chicks in the film were Butt Ugly. Now this is really hard to do today. Just about every woman I see has at least some redeaming feature and those who are actresses usually have many good features. I think they spent a lot of time ugglying these chicks up. Even Angolina Joulie who is usually smoking was not all that attractive. Maybe they did their casting at the Ground Round or the Sizzler or something.
All battle scenes were shot in the shakey camera close up technique. This makes it very hard for you to see anything thats going on. We didn't get many pull back shots which would allow the audience to know who was winning or losing. Also since both sides of a lot of the battles dressed in the same colors and type costumes, you had no idea who's side anyone was on.
Tripple Ugh. I just can't say anymore. When it was over and thankfully it finally did end, I had to go upstairs and watch eppisodes of Cleopatra 2525 just to get the horror out of my eyes.
Maybe I should read a book.
Now since I haven't seen the normal version, I won't be able to compair the two. What I did notice looking at the back covers of both, was that the director's cut is 167 min while the theatrical version was 175 min. Now right off the bat this says something to me. Usually directors cuts are longer than the normal version, due to studois wanting to release a film that takes up less time so that it could be played more and frankly most people just can't st still for that long. For example all 3 of the lord of the rings director cuts had about 30-40 extra minutes of footage. Dune had an extra 2 hours of footage.
Usually if a director decided to just cut footage its because they watched it and realized it blew.
But not to go into this film with preconcieved notions........
So alaxander blew.
To start it was long and not just in time, but it felt long. I can't tell you how thankful I was not to have to sit through another 8 minutes of it like those who saw the normal version did.
The writing in the film was just plain aweful. The lines were horrible. The "kick ass" speachs designed to inspire courage in the army just before battle were long and dull. None of which had even a sprinkeling of the force you felt when Mel spoke in Braveheart, or even what little was said in "Troy". To make matters worse, they often did something stupid with the sound durring some of the speaches so you could't even hear what Alaxander was saying. Just genuis, I can see him talking but you've covered it up with horse sounds and wheel moving sounds. What a directing inspiration.
Which brings us to the directing part. I don't think I can describe in words how baddly it was directed. Scenes were all out of time, now normally this can have a cool effect, but in Alaxander, characters were not developed and hardly introduced. So placing scenes out of sequence for the most part left me asking, "who is this guy? No matter he is dead now." The film ended up being very confusing, not due to a complicated sequence of interactions meant to leave the audience stumped, but because it was a bunch of almost unrelated bits strung together with only a "bablyon 10 years prior" tag to bridge them. Ugh.
To the actor's credit, I beleive most of them did as well as they could with what they were given.
To Oliver Stone's credit, I will never willingly go see another one of his films. I never realized how baddly of a director he was until I reallt stoped to think about it.
And finally I'll list a few minor annoyances:
Alaxander was gay or bisexual. Now homosexuality was acceptable back in this era and I don't know if there was any historical records which would indicate Alexander was gay. To me it seemed like it was done more as a publicity stunt. We didn't need to see Alex checking out the pretty boys in his ranks time and time again. This was supposed to be a kick ass war film. Thats not to say a kick ass hero can't be gay, but if he's going to be gay, make him gay and get on with it. We don't need to see hours of sexual inuendo and hints Alex likes boys.
Though I guess I can't really blame this universe's alexander for crossing the fence so to speak due to my next issue.
All the chicks in the film were Butt Ugly. Now this is really hard to do today. Just about every woman I see has at least some redeaming feature and those who are actresses usually have many good features. I think they spent a lot of time ugglying these chicks up. Even Angolina Joulie who is usually smoking was not all that attractive. Maybe they did their casting at the Ground Round or the Sizzler or something.
All battle scenes were shot in the shakey camera close up technique. This makes it very hard for you to see anything thats going on. We didn't get many pull back shots which would allow the audience to know who was winning or losing. Also since both sides of a lot of the battles dressed in the same colors and type costumes, you had no idea who's side anyone was on.
Tripple Ugh. I just can't say anymore. When it was over and thankfully it finally did end, I had to go upstairs and watch eppisodes of Cleopatra 2525 just to get the horror out of my eyes.
Maybe I should read a book.
1 Comments:
Told you. Warned you. I'm duct taping HH to their chairs to watch that movie as the most evil thing to do. (Worse movie I've ever subjected myself to!)
Alexander was a bi-sexual. He had many wives (to help extend his empire), he was a brilliant warrior leader making only one mistake (taking elephants through the alpes, which I can't remember if it was before or after hannible), and he was not a whiny wimp.
Problem is that todays movie exec are homophobic, blind and have a stick that needs medical help to be remove.
As for Stone: he had good actors, 1000s of extras, awesome locations and Sir Hopkins to do the monologue! I don't know how he could have F-up so bad. I mean, my little skills with film, and I could do better with what he had.
/rant - should have listen :P
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