ALEXANDER

By any measure, Alexander the Great was an extraordinary individual. He conquered 90 percent of the world known to him at that time, forging a vast empire (albeit one that broke into a number of pieces after his death at age 32). There's no question that he was a fascinating figure and trying to sum him up while simultaneously creating a coherent context for his life and times within the span of a three-hour movie would be a daunting task for anyone.

Director/writer Oliver Stone is a filmmaker always up for a challenge. His approach to some of the conundrums inherent in the material here have results that are sometimes spectacular, sometimes dull, sometimes downright goofy and sometimes all of the above.

Anthony Hopkins is our narrator Ptolemy, looking back as an old man on his youthful days (the character is played in his 20s and 30s by Elliot Cowan) as a follower of Alexander (Colin Farrell). Alexander is the son of King Philip of Macedonia (Val Kilmer), who has a ferociously antagonistic relationship with Alexander's mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie). For one thing, Olympias keeps insisting that the god Zeus, rather than Philip, is Alexander's real father. She urges Alexander to reach for glory and to distrust Philip, who is ambivalently proud of and resentful toward his son. Philip takes a new wife, whose infant son is in line for the throne, but that all changes when Philip is murdered. Alexander becomes king and, as Darius of Persia is reportedly behind the assassination, Alexander invades Persia and then keeps going.

According to the script by Stone, Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis, one of the things that distinguished Alexander as a conqueror was that he truly believed he was doing a great thing by bringing Greek culture to the rest of the world, envisioning a future in which all of those within the kingdom would be united in their citizenry (well, except the slaves).

Colin Farrell plays Alexander with a passionate, guileless sincerity that makes us believe he honestly is convinced he's doing the right thing, no matter how much bloodshed is involved. There are parallels to be drawn with current events a leader who has his eye on the goal, waging a war on a pretext he knows is dubious (Persia is not the most likely source of Philip's assassin) but sure it's all for a greater good.

Stone and Co. try to present several views of their protagonist, but ALEXANDER often gets bogged down in curious exposition and even more odd choices in pacing. We are told Philip has been murdered, but the sequence depicting it is shown in flashback in the last third of the film. Given that it illustrates something strongly suggested from the outset, the revelations of the flashback play as a misjudged effort at surprise that simply create a puzzling gap earlier on.

Stone's gift for spectacle is in full flower here, with brilliantly colorful tableaux and amazing battlefield clashes involving masses of fighters, steeds and ferocious chaos. However, the dramatic sections are sometimes draggy and disjointed. We're watching Alexander rather than empathizing with him, our narrator Ptolemy is present but a background figure throughout the drama there's no unifying point of view. The dialogue is occasionally awkward and the constant intercutting to old Ptolemy telling the story eventually serves to underscore the fact that the incidents don't readily lead into one another.

The relationship between Alexander and his best friend/lover/lieutenant Hephaestion seems to particularly confound the filmmakers. On the one hand, Stone seems to want to make sure nobody can accuse him of chickening out of acknowledging Alexander's bisexuality, so we have Olympias and others observing that the conqueror truly loves Hephaestion. On the other hand, the movie seems so fearful that anybody might think its hero is actually predominantly gay that we get actual lectures (from Christopher Plummer as Aristotle, yet) that love between men is best when it transcends sexuality. Alexander and Hephaestion hug a lot and otherwise exude zero chemistry (Alexander does seem to have some interest in a cross-dressing servant, though this too is handled discreetly). It only matters because the characters talk about it so much either show us this much-mooted love or move on.

This approach to emotional matters permeates the entire film to some degree we are often told how characters feel, perhaps because the scenes play out so ambiguously. The result is talky and emotionally remote.

Then again, Stone does achieve a great deal in getting us to comprehend some measure of the scope of Alexander's achievement. ALEXANDER is often breathtaking and thought-provoking, even when it lacks visceral power. The ultimate effect is messy, fascinating and ever so slightly trippy.