I am currently reading a book called STAND & DELIVER, a history of Highwaymen. Then I have a play caled BLOODY POETRY by Howard Brenton about Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley, etc. I am also thumbing through ALEXANDER OF MACEDON because I watched Oliver Stone's director's cut of ALEXANDER and what a tedious piece of emptiness this is. Barely a half hour into it, I turned to The Lovely Wife and said, "The Burton ALEXANDER THE GREAT isn't a good film, but it's already better than this. This is my first experience with Colin Farrell and I must say I find him appalling uncharismatic and not a particularly good actor. Val Kilmer and others seem to be affecting Irish accents...for Greek and Macedonian characters...I guess to accomodate Farrell, although his Irish seems to come and go in an attempt to do standard, neutral North Atlantic. Angelina Jolie uses something that sounds like bad Russian-Italian-vaguely Middle Eastern. Then you've got some smaller roles who are doing Cockney or Low English accents that would make Dick Van Dyke blush!
Both accents and ability notwithstanding, there is not much people can do with the ponderous, pretentious, somnambulistic dialogue (I thought Oliver Stone could write better than this) that preaches and predicts the future and doesn't really say much at all. Production values are handsome, but spectacle without plot or character and dynamic dialogue is rather pointless.
A big part of the problem is you don't believe that Colin Farrell, who plays Alexander as a petulant, puzzled, whiny little boy, could lead anybody anywhere. Nor that anyone would follow him for very long. He gives what are supposed to be mesmerizing, rousing speeches that just leave you scratching your head and sound like mindless screeching or whinging (People shout a lot in this film...it's not subtle).
At least Burton was focused, driven, and vaguely messaniac in his approach, and his anguish came off as anguish, not the pouting of a teenage boy. Which is the biggest difference. Burton plays a man; Farrell is yet just another immature youth of which we have too many in the movies.
We actually watched the Burton Alexander later. And it's amazing either how much Stone just swiped from the movie or how much history is actually recorded about Alexander, because some scenes down to the dialogue were eeriely familiar. That's why I thumbing through the bio...I want to find these moments.
