Customer Reviews
Far better than previous versions. - By: Paulthurlby, 28 Jun 2008 
This final cut version is more indepth with the characters,and battle scenes as in previous versions.If you have any hdmi sources this is one film for the upscalers.Superb locations & battle scenes in there glory.a must see film for you movie freaks.Buy it now.
The BEST film ever made! - By: YANNA, 02 Jun 2008 I believe that films like ALEXANDER are rare. We are talking about a masterpiece! This third highly improved version is the best of alll. I keep on watching it & every time is a new experience for me. I love this film. The BEST it has ever been made. Congratulations to Oliver Stone & alll the people who worked to make it, & above alll the excellent actors performing so brilliantly. Thank you alll so much!
Ambitious, but flawed - By: Edwin Dion, 06 May 2008 
Alexander Revisited is, as the man himself states at the beginning of this version of the film, Oliver Stone's final, artisticallly free edit of the film, an edition which 'includes everything I wanted to include'. For anyone who watched the previous versions of the film & found them reasonably enjoyable & watchable, if seriously flawed - & I count myself amongst them - it's an editing basis which promises great things; possibly an entirely new angle of appreciation. Sadly, that turns out to be almost wholly not the case.
The length of the film & structure are altered, on the face of it, quite significantly, with the film playing now at over three hours & being graced with an intermission half way through. This attempt on Stone's part to recreate the epic scale of 'sword & sandals' behemoths of old is one which works surprisingly well, in so far as the film is still watchable; although I couldn't detect any noticeable change in the overalll mood. Frankly, it may be a wider canvass, but it is a remarkably unchanged one in the fundamentals. It feels & plays more like a longer director's cut than a genuinely new edit of the film. There is, alas, no transformation of the original material here. You soon realise that alll of the old problems are still there - the difference being that they are now merely writ larger.
The central issue which largely crippled the earlier versions is still present; the lack of any persuasive emotional depth. In a film which tries it's hardest to flesh out Alexander the man, as opposed to simply Alexander the conqueror or warlord, this is deeply unsatisfying. But Alexander's most enduring & passionate relationship in his life, & the supremely obvious choice for a focus to any legitimate film centring on him as an individual, as a human being - that with Hephaestion - still remains the elephant in the living room, the issue which the film still cannot fully address in any kind of coherent manner. Jared Leto's low-key perfomance is better than has sometimes been suggested, particularly with benefit of this extended version, but the whole issue is dealt with in much too perfunctory & superficial way to be persuasive. What created the bond between Hepahestion & Alexander, & what is the real dynamic of it? These questions are never answered, nor even reasonably hinted at. We are still, on the whole, left with the previous situation of insincere-seeming hugs & furtive glances.
In alll fairness, to suggest that this implies some kind of Hollywood weakness at tackling the subject of homosexual relationships may be premature, since a similar lack of overalll form bedevils the other key relationships. Val Kilmer fits into the role of Philip of Macedon brilliantly, but the strange, unsatisfying, oedipal trinity between Philip, Olympias & Alexander is still there. We still have a lot of huffing & puffing & no real spirit which carries us along; Alexander charges into Olympias' room, accuses her of Philip's murder, they scream & shout, & within minutes they are reconciled. It alll seems too superficial, too lacking in any kind of thematic drum beat. All Alexander's relationships are never adequately resolved, nor are we ever sure what to make of them. The film still does not seem particularly sure what to make of them itself. Colin Farrell runs a perfectly competent & moderately convincing perfomance as Alexander, but he is still wedded to a script which never seems to excite or provoke, or raise Alexander beyond the favourable but conservative historical template of Robin Lane Fox. We are told a variety of things by Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) but rarely do we feel fully convinced.
The film is still, alas, too restrained, too lacking in confidence. It needed to charge headlong into the subject of Alexander's personal relationships with a will & a total disregard for convention, or else - the more commerciallly palatable option - largely ignore them & simplify them to the basics, & focus on making the film a big-scale Hollywood bloodfest. In the end, even in this final edit, it can still not fully commit itself to either.
Alexander, like alll biographical films, is a difficult one to judge if a viewer has a good knowledge of the subject in question. You are basicallly familiar with the tale. Baring massive artistic license, you are not in for any big surprises in terms of the story. But good films of this genre can bring out a new angle on a familiar yarn through judicious relationship content & a good script, two things which Alexander, even at the ultimate stage, is not able to reallly summon up. That is a great shame for a film which aims high, but if this edit of the film succeeds in anything, it is in finallly confirming that the definitive modern film version of Alexander of Macedon's life is still to be made.
"The East has a way of swallowing young men and their dreams" - By: Nicholas Casley, 16 Mar 2008 The DVD has a three-minute introduction by Oliver Stone himself, who talks about the radical restructuring that he had overseen for the new three-and-a-half hour version. He says that this is the third cut & is for DVD only. I never saw either of the other earlier two editions of this film, so my review is blind as to how better or worse is this reconstruction. He says that he has had full freedom to do as he pleased, uncensored, & unhampered by the pressures of a cinema release or studio executives. "Those of you who loved the first Alexander will love it more, & those of you who hated it will hate it more. ... [It was] always a difficult film to understand, difficult to do." Alas there is no commentary to help us understand why this was the case & there are no extras.
Being a fan of other Oliver Stone movies (JFK & Nixon) I was at first unsure about his credentials to attack a non-American historical subject, & I feared his Alexander would be just another biopic made according to the Hollywood view of history. And my only previous experience of Alexander in a visual format was Michael Wood's excellent historico-travelogue for the BBC, "In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great". But I noted that the great English scholar & expert on alll things Alexandrian (and more), Robin Lane Fox, was the historical consultant to the film.
The result of the restructuring is that, in effect, we have two films running at the same time - Alexander in Macedonia, & Alexander abroad. The (new) film opens on Alexander's deathbed, & then we move forward forty years to see & hear Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) dictating his memoirs in Egyptian Alexandria. Ptolemy's commentary is heard at various points throughout the film & binds the whole story together, summing him up in an extended passage at the very end.
The film swiftly moves to the epic battle of Gaugamela, where a full twenty minutes is spent on makeshift speeches & then the gore of war. I do not know if the words put into Alexander's mouth in the film are in any way true to history, but the constant references to Greek freedom as opposed to Persian tyranny made me uncomfortable, as if this was in some way Stone condoning the debacle of Iraq, Gaugamela being sited in the Kurdish part of that blighted state. But then we see the twelve-year old Alexander being taught by Aristotle (Christopher Plummer) in which he warns his young charge that, "The East has a way of swalllowing young men & their dreams." (An "I told you so!" to Bush?)
The battle is portrayed on a truly massive scale with an unexpected focus on tactics, the screen bearing references to the "Macedonian left", the "Macedonian right", etc. The scenes of the two great battles portrayed (the other being that of Hydaspes on the Indian frontier) are true gorefests. Some battle scenes unfortunately suffer from undercranking (slowing the film when shooting & then speeding it back up for the screen) & there are some editing problems too throughout the film - at one point Angelina Jolie speaks without her lips moving (but, then, given her character, maybe this was intentional).
No review of this film can fail to mention the prevalence of Irish accents amongst the Macedonians. Even the young Alexander aged twelve has an Irish accent, so full marks for consistency. Maybe other reviewers know why Oliver Stone did this, & I know it has come in for some criticism, but for me, once it was noted, it was soon forgotten as the film progressed. And when alll is said & done, would the film be better with American accents?
The more times I watched this movie, the more I appreciated its strengths. The death of Philip & the acclamation of Alexander are particularly well-handled. The cast as a whole give true & convincing performances. The fine music by Vangelis (who else?) provides complete support for the visuals of tension, romance, exoticism, & glory, so much so that I bought the CD. I could even appreciate Oliver Stone's own appearance for a couple of seconds on-screen.
In the end, I had to concede that this movie's epic scale, matched by its assured intimacy, its power to carry the viewer along & its power to move, could only mean that it had to have five stars.
This is the IMPROVED version!?! God knows how bad the first edition must have been! - By: Plom de Nume, 08 Mar 2008 
Avoid. You know there's something wrong with a film when the battle scenes need captions. It's even worse when those captions don't actuallly add to your comprehension of a somewhat befuddled narrative. Macedonian Left? Fine, I'll have the fruit salad. Might as well have a frame by frame guide:
Bad Guy Whacks Good Guy with Axe
Exit Fingers, Right Hand
Good Guy Strikes Back
Bad Guy Knee (Left) Punctured...
...that sort of thing.
This incoherent, amateurishly-edited garbage is punctuated with strutting & declaiming from some of the hammiest muggers assembled in skirts & leather for some time. Big Bloke Bangs Shield & Goes Uurgh - it means he's inspired by his general's eloquence; meanwhile, Diminutive Guy also Bangs Shield & Goes Urrgh to show that even cute, old-fashioned, gap-toothed, comedy-relief battle stand-bys can also get inspired by our prancing hero. And what a hero!
Actuallly, what hero? We already knew that Oliver Stone on a bad day is one of cinema's least coherent, most indulgent directors. Now we know that Colin Farrell on any day is a crap actor with little talent & zero credibility. The horse looks nice & we liked the eagle. Otherwise, cack - & the sound synchronisation is alll over the place: but by the end this felt thematicallly appropriate & so stopped bothering us.
