Oliver Stone's Alexander is a Confused Mess

If you've been reading my articles for a bit you know that I can be a bit brutal in speaking my truths. However, when it comes to Oliver Stone's film Alexander, this review is brutal even for me. Alexander is one of the worst and most disheartening films I've ever seen. And, unlike some bad movies, Stone's depiction of the life of Alexander the Great didn't even managed to be a fun ride.

In any normal film circumstance, a brief summarization of the life of Alexander the Great would suffice to give you the gist of the film's plot. However, as Oliver Stone's Alexander has no clearly constructed plot arc, any significant discussion of the life of Alexander the Great is somewhat besides the point or scope of this film review.

Oliver Stone's film attempts to address Alexander the Great's conquests, personal relationships and family history, and fails at all three.

Oliver Stone's retelling of Alexander the Great's military conquests is muddled. We are never given a sense as to Alexander's motivation, nor a clear explanation of the progress of Alexander's empire. We get no hint at matters of Alexander the Great's character and skill as supported by the historical record - the intellect, strategy and military genius are never discussed, and the battle scenes are so poorly written that one of them needs subtitles just for the audience to follow it - this is not a testament to the complexity of Alexander the Great's military techniques (which largely relied on simple but clever strategy) , but to bad scripting and structure from Oliver Stone.