Usually Oliver Stone’s films have a strong thesis, but Alexander lacked a focal point. Even the narrative structure lacked focus. Alexander starts at his death, forwards 40 years later to one of his closest friends telling others about Alexander then in the middle of the film, there are flashbacks to contrast something that happened in Macedonia with what happens when he is traveling East. The contrast would have worked better if Stone had done the reverse because then I would have been more invested in some characters. It was disconcerting for so many fair-headed British and Irish people to expound on the awesomeness of being Greek or Macedonian. It also felt like all those British and Irish people recently visited their hometown because I needed closed captioning to understand what some of them were saying. Better than Troy, but still it fell short. Unlike Troy, I don’t blame the actors. If you can’t make Colin Farrell, whom I know can convincingly play a bisexual man in love with more than one person (see A Home at the End of the World) believable as a bisexual conqueror open to all cultures, then I’m going to blame Oliver Stone, not the actors. Also why was every heterosexual interaction somewhat rapey? Stone, see a therapist. Only one person shines and brings everything to life: Angelina Jolie. It is beyond absurd that Angelina Jolie was cast as Colin Farrell’s mother in Alexander-she is one year older, but thank God that she was in it. She steals every scene, and I actually think that the narrative was so messed up because Stone was looking for an excuse to make sure that she periodically appeared throughout Alexander. Did I buy her as a possible sorceress, snake playing, scheming ancient queen who had an affair with Zeus? Yes, yes I did. In one scene, she literally looked like a statue of a Greek goddess come to life. Shout out to brief appearance by Brian Blessed, whom I haven’t seen in a movie since The Trojan Women.