Olympias (Angelina Jolie) and Alexander (Colin Farrell) are mother and son in ALEXANDER (2004)
Right off the bat, I have to admit that I don't like this film. Even though it looks good, everything about it rubs me the wrong way. Director Oliver Stone doesn't know how to film a PEPLUM production. His (disjointed) style doesn't work with this expensive production. A film like this has to have a certain amount of nobility or grandiose vision, which it lacks. Also, it's really bad camp, with Farrell wide-eyed throughout. Every time he's one screen, I always fight the need to laugh out loud. As for Angelina, her awful accent and over-acting (actually, everyone overacts in this) as Alexander's mother, well, it doesn't get any worse than this. Like so many films such as this one (old and new), the entire international cast have conflicting accents. It's one of those odd things which afflicts the genre (think of QUO VADIS and Robert Taylor's American accent versus the British accents from most of the cast). THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) is camp but at least it's brilliant camp. This production is near risible camp. In parts, it's almost unwatchable. The film was a flop and the infamous same-sex love interest didn't help it at the box office but in the end the film itself was the reason no one wanted to see it.
3 comments:
I find that I can watch individual parts of this film, and enjoy it quite well. But as a whole it's just one long uphill climb. And the crazy accents are too distracting! Apparently, Macedonians all have the Irish brogue.
Although I like the movie far better than you do, Angelina's accept always sounds to me like Natasha Fatale on Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Awful film!. It looked like a cheap (or expensive) pamphlet for everything including "actors". There was no Alexander the Great anywhere. Our times have nothing to do with heroism.
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