Alexander

1/2 oz. Gin,
1/2 oz. White Creme de Cacao,
2 oz. Cream,
Nutmeg

Shake all ingredients (except nutmeg) with ice and strain into a Cocktail glass or flute, Sprinkle nutmeg on top and serve.

Babar and Celeste's son, one of their triplets. He has a sister, Flora, and a brother, Pom. Alexander is pretty boring. Pom always has more fun getting in to trouble.

See the Babar node for more information about these charming fictional elephants from Laurent and Jean de Brunhoff's series of children's books.

A masculine name from the Greek Alexandros, which literally means "defender of men," from the Greek alexein, "defend" and ander, "man."

In the Final Fantasy series of video games, Alexander is a huge robotic castle thing that shoots laser-like beams of energy. He is generally summonable through a spell and is linked to the "Holy" element (thus his beams are more damaging to evil and undead foes).

Alexander was the son of Grand Prince Mikhail of Russia and became Grand Prince himself in 1326 on the execution of his older brother Dmitry II by the Mongols who then controlled Russia. Alexander was from the city of Tver, and he had cousins/rivals from Moscow who wanted the Grand Prince's position.

In 1327 the people of Tver rebelled against the Mongols, though Alexander had nothing to do with the rebellion. In the fighting, an envoy who was a cousin of the Mongol Khan was killed. The Mongols sent a punitive expedition with the cooperation of Ivan of Moscow, and Alexander fled to Pskov, farther west, and eventually to Lithuania when Ivan-led troops headed toward Pskov. Ivan I became Grand Prince.

Alexander returned to Pskov in 1331 with Lithuanian backing. He ruled there as prince, and in 1337 the Khan called him to Sarai, the Mongol capital, and made him prince of Tver (but not Grand Prince) again. However, in 1339 the Khan summoned him to Sarai again and had him executed.

Telling the tale of Alexander the Great's life, conquest of much of the (to him) known world, and death by 33 would prove a daunting task to any filmmaker. No ordinary film could contain the battles, relationships, and the varied, ancient settings that Alexander encountered in his time. One either must focus on one aspect, or arrange the story-– as Peter Jackson did The Lord of the Rings-- into several lengthy films. Oliver Stone took neither approach with 2004's Alexander, and the resulting movie proves incoherent and aimless.

Director: Oliver Stone
Writers: Oliver Stone, Christopher Kyle, Laeto Kalogridis
Production design:Jan Roelfs.

Features:
Colin Farrell...Alexander the Great
Anthony Hopkins...Ptolemy
Angelina Jolie...Olympia
Val Kilmer...Philip
Jared Leto...Hephastion
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers...Cassander
Rosario Dawson...Roxane
Connor Paolo...Young Alexander
Christopher Plummer...Aristotle
Jean Le Duc...Fat Eunuch

Alexander surrounds its story with fantastic spectacle and scenery-- which the actors then chew in a manner that would make William Shatner proud. The script, meanwhile, is a muddled mess.

Stone tries to cover huge holes in his story by having Anthony Hopkins narrate. In the end, this approach merely slows down the film, as Hopkins' Ptolemy tells us nothing really insightful, and it becomes painfully apparent that he's narrating over critical events that we really should see. The film skips across aspects of Alexander's career and then, as the movie reaches its conclusion, suddenly flashes back to an important scene from its hero's early life that we really needed to see sooner. I can't think of any good narrative purpose the chronological displacement serves, save to get us to the first battle before we fall asleep.

The battle sequences are slow coming, but they make for spectacular viewing. A conflict in India involving armies, horses, and armoured elephants proves the best of a number of excellent sequences. Stone's film lacks heart, but he recreates historical battles in both their epic grandeur and horrible bloodshed. The film also shows us wonders. With locations in Malta, Thailand, and Morocco, top-notch CGI and matte work, Alexander provides visual spectacle to match any SF film. Ancient Babylon, in particular, exceeded my expectations.

Alexander looks good. The film fails fundamentally, however, because it does not allow the audience to care about any of the characters. We jump from scene to scene, with inadequate understanding of motivation and little exposure to their underlying humanity. Nothing draws us into the lives of the people warring and dying onscreen and, despite a cast of noteworthy actors, we see few good performances.

Hopkins handles his part well, but most of the actors put in atrocious, over-the-top performances that might suit Greek tragedy or Wagnerian opera, but don't work in film. We're left with veteran actors who behave as though they believe that shouting equals high drama. Alexander is an hysterical epic. By far, the strangest exhibition comes from Angelina Jolie. While nearly everyone speaks with their native accent-- American or British or Irish (after all, the characters would be speaking ancient Greek and other languages; I don't have a problem in just having them speak naturally in an historical epic)-- Jolie gives Olympia a bizarre accent that sounds like Bela Lugosi's great-granddaughter playing a gypsy fortuneteller in a school play. Again, the decision baffles. Surely, her ever-present pet snakes and Machiavellian plotting should be enough to convince us Olympia is the exotic witch Stone apparently believes she was.

This film makes a mess of its male/female relationships, and doesn't fare any better with its men. Stone has no idea what to do with Alexander's purported (by some) bisexuality. A filmmaker can ignore this, explore it, or have the actors subtly reference it. Stone chooses the final option, except he seems to have lost all sense of subtlety and, since the film's great weakness is the failure to explore and develop character, we see just enough to know that Stone wanted to explore the topic, and that he failed to do so.

The film appears to contain some kind of Iraqi war/War on Terror subtext in the early battles with the Persians. References are made to Alexander completing–- and exceeding–- his father's quest, perhaps going further than he should. He tells his troops they are free men facing an evil despot, a notion which the film then problematizes. The Persian leader superficially resembles Osama bin Laden. I have no idea if Stone intended any of this, but it seems plausible; he's always been a political director. Of course, any film about a man conquering the world because he believes doing so will improve it will naturally resonate with certain views of America's turn-of-the-millennium foreign policies.

Alexander looks good, and no doubt Stone had excellent cinematic intentions, but he has spliced together a patchwork of great set pieces, uncertain history, camp performances, and sandal epic that fails as a film.

A variation of this review, by this author, first appeared at bureau42

Warning: Reading this may spoil your enjoyment of the movie.

Category: Adventure
Year: 2004
Length: 175 mins
Rating: MA15+

Let me begin by saying that my general reaction to this film was "Aaaargh," and it just got worse. But let me tell you a little of the plot before we get into that. Alexander is a biographical look at one of the greatest military leaders of all time, and the man who conquered most of the then-known world, Alexander The Great. The 2004 Alexander is unrelated to the 1956 film of the same name. Alexander is narrated by Ptolemy I Soter to a class of students. Ptolemy and the students are occasionally seen, however most of the film is flashbacks. We journey with Ptolemy from the birth of Alexander in 356 BC to his death in 323 BC, looking at key points in his life.

Alexander stars Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, and Anthony Hopkins. This fact alone probably did a lot to influence my expectations, but I really did try to be unbiased. To be honest, most of them did play their parts well. Jolie is the exception here. First there was the accent. Is that an American with a fake Russian accent I hear there? Seriously, she was good in Taking Lives, and we should leave her there. I just get this weird feeling all throughout Alexander that she's trying to be sexy, and it's just really, really annoying. Hopkins is Hopkins, he was probably my favourite character in this as the old scholar Ptolemy.

Next we come to the music. It was pretty good actually. I did have no expectations about the soundtrack, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear Vangelis. He's fantastic, and there's little else to say. The soundtrack won the Public Choice Award in 2005 at the World Soundtrack Awards.

Possibly the only thing in Alexander that could have got my goat to a degree rivalling Olympias (Joile) was the special effects. The battle scenes were really well detailed, with just the right number of men and everything. I know in a real battle, there's a lot of dust and no one can see everything, so even that was really realistic in Alexander. I do have to complain about something though... Particle shaders in 340 BC weren't as good as the ones we have now, I realise that, but the graphics in the battle scenes looked like they came from a 90s MS Flight Sim. Oh, and did I say there was more CGI than real footage? Yeah, that kind of made things worse. Also, blood. Yes, there was blood, lots of blood. Enough blood for a zombie movie even. Or maybe it wasn't blood. Tomato sauce would have nearly done a better job than the stage blood all the actors seemed to keep finding themselves covered in. They're not always covered in blood though, that's mostly during the battle scenes. The rest of the time, they're just covered in disfigured Bandaids that look remotely like scars. Some characters are even missing eyes, this part is done decently. What's a movie without a good chroma key though? And Alexander certainly delivers enough chroma keys. Good chroma keys though? Well, they're alright. I wish I could say the same for most of the "outdoor" studio shots. Some studio sets in Alexander are fabulous, like the Babylonian castle. Some though, are incredibly obviously fake, like the night sky from the balcony.

Was Alexander historically accurate? Yes and no. A very Arabic looking King Darius seems cowardly in the battle scene. Sexual practices in ancient Greece were radically less prominent than they are today. Alexander's alleged homosexuality is over-emphasised I believe, particularly in regards to his makeup-clad, long-hair, effeminate male boyhood friend. No male on male sex scenes are actually ever showed though. Speaking of sex, if you were waiting for it, don't bother. It's not Angelina Jolie who has the sex, and it's not till about three quarters through the movie when Alexander tries to rape his wife on their wedding night, and she tries to murder him for his homosexuality.

Enough complaining though, what did I like? The promotional poster. I rather like the design of the poster that became the DVD (and BD) cover. I'm not sure why, it's just a natural layout. As I said, I like the music too. Coherency was good, and I thought the movie was quite well glued together, just there was little to glue together. Unfortunately, Alexander has been one of the worst movies I've seen lately. It isn't even something I would put on in the background and not really watch. It's odd though that, considering it won a Silver Frog Award in its year of release.