• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Alexander is indescribably bad :(

Status
Not open for further replies.

Meier

Member
Oh man, I've been dying to see this forever since Oliver Stone is one of my favorite directors but this thing is just totally dreadful. Get a clip of Rosario Dawson's beautiful tigole bitties off the internet and skip this completely. :(
 

NLB2

Banned
That's 'cause they were making a movie about the wrong Alexander.
emelianenko.jpg
 

Meier

Member
Master Z said:
I had a feeling this might suck. So what was so bad about it?

Everything. The pacing in particular was dreadful.. the acting was not that bad but this thing just dragged and dragged and dragged. Way too much attempted symbolism -- honestly, there was very little I could say in praise of it. Right from the very start when it had this totally unnecessary trippy opening sequence I was concerned. The only thing that came to mind there was, "Why?"
 

hXc_thugg

Member
Meier said:
Everything. The pacing in particular was dreadful.. the acting was not that bad but this thing just dragged and dragged and dragged. Way too much attempted symbolism -- honestly, there was very little I could say in praise of it. Right from the very start when it had this totally unnecessary trippy opening sequence I was concerned. The only thing that came to mind there was, "Why?"

Actually sounds like something I would like...a lot.
 

Meier

Member
Feel free but I can gaurantee you'll hate it. It's waaaay too long -- seriously, it would have been better if they had just completely removed Anthony Hopkins' character's parts but I guess they wanted to add another superstar to the mix.
 

hXc_thugg

Member
Meier said:
Feel free but I can gaurantee you'll hate it. It's waaaay too long -- seriously, it would have been better if they had just completely removed Anthony Hopkins' character's parts but I guess they wanted to add another superstar to the mix.

Doesn't he play Old Ptolemy, though? It would be kind of dumb without Old Ptolemy.
 

Celicar

Banned
Meier, I can't believe you went to see this for free. I wasn't even going to waste my time. I knew it was going to be crap. Don't tell me. You went and saw the National Treasure movie for free too?
 

Meier

Member
Celicar said:
Meier, I can't believe you went to see this for free. I wasn't even going to waste my time. I knew it was going to be crap. Don't tell me. You went and saw the National Treasure movie for free too?

Nah, I had to work that day anyway. I did end up giving like 100 passes out to Alexander when the people left National Treasure though haha. And come on man, Oliver Stone has made some classic fucking movies! This could have been great :(
 

Richiban

Member
Yep...caught this tonight and was terribly disappointed. It was way too long, horrible pacing and just plain didn't catch my attention at all.

Angelina Jolie sounded like she had a russian accent throughout the movie, and Collin Farrell just seemed to over reach.

The way I see it, Oliver Stone bit off more than he could chew with this one, or else he got way too ambitious in his story telling
 

snaildog

Member
Are any of these bad impressions from people who know and love the whole Alexander story? "Bad pacing" too often means "doesn't follow typical American action film format".

(opening action scene, character introduction, action, story, action, main character fights with best friend, action, main character makes up with best friend, action, soppy happy ending)
 
I think I lost all desire to see this movie when during the trailer, Angleina Jolie said in a ridiculus accent "My revenge is in my WOMB!"

Why the hell is she speaking with an accent anyways? Is it really that necessary of a plot device that demands her character to speak a language that wasn't invented for another 2000 years in a bastardized russian accent? Bah, it makes no sense that if you're already speaking english... fuck it.
 

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
snaildog said:
Are any of these bad impressions from people who know and love the whole Alexander story? "Bad pacing" too often means "doesn't follow typical American action film format".

(opening action scene, character introduction, action, story, action, main character fights with best friend, action, main character makes up with best friend, action, soppy happy ending)
Usually when I think a movie has "bad pacing" it's because it does follow that format. Although yes, believe it or not, there is such a thing as being too slow.
 

snaildog

Member
It's just that people watch it for different reasons. The extended editions for LOTR are too slow for most people, but your average Tolkien fanatic would be happy if they were six hours long. If it takes time to go into detail about Alexander's true story and character then I'll be happy.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
I heard this was the type of movie you'll either love or hate. Hopefully I won't fall in the latter camp.

edit - also, for those who've seen it, how much do you think ended up being cut from it? I hear its being delayed in europe so they can include all the bits they originally wanted in but had to take out for the US - don't know how true that is.

edit 2 - heh, just saw a review headline: "Alexander the Straight". Guess that answers my question :lol
 

Agent Dormer

Dirty Drinking Smoker
Celicar said:
Meier, I can't believe you went to see this for free. I wasn't even going to waste my time. I knew it was going to be crap. Don't tell me. You went and saw the National Treasure movie for free too?

We haven't advertised it yet, but we're going to be having a screening of The Life Aquatic at the SLB on the 8th of December to cap off this semester's programing.
 

Rlan

Member
Regardless of this movie, I'll still grab this when it comes out:

230075.jpg


Ultimate Oliver Stone Collection (14 Disc Box Set)
Coming Soon! Pre-Order Now - Available Wednesday, 15 December 2004
$AU164.95

A box set collecting together ten movies fom American maverick Oliver Stone: his Oscar-winner Platoon (1986), Salvador (1986), Wall Street (1987), Born On The 4th Of July (1989), JFK (1991), The Doors (1991), Heaven And Earth (1993), Natural Born Killers (1994), U-Turn (1997) and Any Given Sunday (1999).

Also included is the documentary Oliver Stone's America (2001), plus a bonus disc that takes a look at the making of Stone's epic Alexander (2004), and features a pair of politcial documentaries by the director: Persona Non Grata (2003) and Looking for Fidel (2004).
 

Celicar

Banned
Agent Dormer said:
We haven't advertised it yet, but we're going to be having a screening of The Life Aquatic at the SLB on the 8th of December to cap off this semester's programing.



That's freakin sweet! That is definitely one movie I wouldn't mind waiting a few hours in line for.
 

speedpop

Has problems recognising girls
Being a huge Alexander the Great history buff, I am avoiding this movie at all costs. How did they deal with the homosexuality stuff? Or even the incestual rumours of Alexander and his mother?
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
speedpop said:
Being a huge Alexander the Great history buff, I am avoiding this movie at all costs. How did they deal with the homosexuality stuff? Or even the incestual rumours of Alexander and his mother?

I feared for its faithfulness to the apparent concensus on his sexuality when I saw that "Alexander the Straight" headline, but it actually wasn't suggesting that they completely threw out his homosexual relationships. In fact, according to one critic, Stone makes it quite clear what team he thinks Alexander played for, and downplays his relationship with Roxanne.

I haven't seen the movie, though..someone who has might want to comment.
 

Eminem

goddamit, Griese!
I actually wanna see this after seeing some of those reviews from RT:

Towards the end of this movie, I wanted to kill Alexander just to get it over with and go home.

"So awful that it's almost good."

"3-hour borefest."

"A swollen behemoth of a celluloid monster -- sometimes mildly interesting, but most of the time downright boring."

"An enormous cinematic mess.

:lol :lol :lol :lol ouch
 

Bob White

Member
farrell.jpg


When my friend and I saw this in the trailer, we both started laughing hard as shit. What the fuck is with his face?

If you ask me, that's the face of a man who just farted and likes the smell of it.

And :lol at caged gorilla.
 
NLB2 said:
That's 'cause they were making a movie about the wrong Alexander.
emelianenko.jpg

lol

Are any of these bad impressions from people who know and love the whole Alexander story? "Bad pacing" too often means "doesn't follow typical American action film format".

From-

http://www.splicedonline.com/04reviews/alexander.html

Don't read if you want to know what he left out...doesn't spoil the movie so much as tells what he didn't put in.

The film skips over his first battle commanding at his father's side, and skips over his pivotal creativity in that victory, which established his natural instincts on the battlefield. It skips over his father's murder (although two hours later Stone returns to it in a flashback), skips his ascent to the throne, pays only lip service to his mother's orders to execute his half-brother, and gets the facts wrong about the death of that boy's mother -- his father's more favored wife.

Legendary battles at Granicus, Issus and Tyre are absent from the movie, as are the Macedonian conqueror's conquests of the future Holy Lands, his founding of several cities in his name, and his being made Pharaoh and declared the son of a god by Egyptian priests.

Conversations between Alexander and Hephaistion (Jared Leto), a childhood friend and military compatriot, skirt vaguely around their life-long homosexual relationship, as they declare their undying devotion to each other (with their eyes full of emotional implication), but then embrace only in solid-pat-on-the-back man hugs.

Stone barely touches on Alexander's decent into debauchery once he returned to his primary home in Babylon

There's other stuff like the battle scenes being poor and not telling what made Alexander tyhe legend he was. This sound shorribly bad.

I caught the history channel special on him and sat through all 3 hours of his battles. I don't think I could sit threw this if its not true to history.
 

Meier

Member
Biff Hardbody said:
It skips over his father's murder (although two hours later Stone returns to it in a flashback)

Which was one of the dumbest, and most puzzling decisions of the movie. Why not just put it in its natural place?!
 

Tritroid

Member
Damn, I actually had high hopes for this one.

Why is it historic epic war films have been sucking lately? Troy sucked, King Arthur sucked, and now Alexander sucks.

I've been waiting for a good followup to Gladiator since 00'.
 

Manics

Banned
I saw this last night. Jolie's accent reminded me of Madam Yes from the Flintstones: "You stupid good-lookings, I'm too important to be captured!"

What a bad, bad movie.
 

Azih

Member
Troy was fine, the one on one fights were spectacular and all the characters were true to their Homeric selves
 
What news of Rosario's breasts? The movie's been out since yesterday and still no pics? I'm starting to lose my faith in the internet..
 

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
COCKLES said:
Yet her and Farrell were dating for a large portion of filming....lol.

..:lol after watching that interview clip (i think on mtv).. where she talks about how colin is a mans man and shit like that.. i thought to myself, 'i bet she slept with him'

..

i actually liked troy. it was enjoyable and fun.. the fighting sequences were really awesome..

skipping this movie though .
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom