Holiday film fodder

"Alexander" wants to win an Oscar so bad it hurts. If this movie were a human, the sheer effort and misdirected strain would cause it to sweat blood, and crap perforated stomach ulcers.

But that’s not what director Oliver Stone wants. As demonstrated in every frame of "Alexander," this is about lust. Only Stone didn’t have the decency to stay at home and whack the Alex-lust out of his system -he had to rub one out on the public. He is as in love with the character Alexander as he is with himself, and his dueling obsessions are as impossible to understand as the love a scat fetishist has for spreading poo on the walls of public bathrooms.

At the beginning of the movie a soliloquizing, toga-clad Anthony Hopkins tells us that Alexander was a legend, perhaps he was the son of a god, and his all-encompassing awesomeness should make our heads explode. But what we’re shown is not awesomeness at all, but a pouting Colin Farrell, clad in a metal skirt and panties, groaning lines from an incoherent but omnipotent-sounding script in which every scene is the triumphant conclusion of an epic and haunting film you never saw. "Alexander" is not a film; it’s a director/character love story that wishes it could be a real film.

Jared Leto, who plays Alex’s "best friend," is trying to get all up in Stone’s and Alexander’s shit, and Stone ain’t having it. So any homosexual themes disappear, and Leto and Farrell must be content with moony gazes and special hugs. Good thing, too, or millions of dollars would be lost from the droves of drooling homophobes that will flock to this movie to gawk at the battle scenes.

Alexander’s mom is the super-hot Angelina Jolie with a silly accent, who loves her son a lot. To relieve Alexander of any Oedipal temptation, Stone makes her creepy and overbearing, and Alex spends the rest of his life avoiding her. Alexander’s dad is a drunkard. He’s a fat grease ball who, in a particularly un-poignant scene, falls on the floor and verbally abuses Alexander until he sulks. Dad abuses poor little Alex all the time, but since the father poses no sexual threat to Stone, the son is still allowed to maintain a sense of responsibility towards him.

This is why, at one point in the movie, Alex seeks to avenge Dad, I think. Like I said, the whole movie must be a private joke, shared between Stone and Alexander while they giggled and tickled each other one foggy morning in bed. The plot and motivations of the characters were completely lost in the haze of blind adoration.

If I were Alexander, however, I would ask Stone why he only wants my sweet ass and doesn’t respect my feelings. The very title of the film – "Alexander," not "Alexander the Great" – suggests that the movie is concerned not with Alexander the leader, but Alexander the person. He whines, goes to war, makes goo-goo eyes at pretty men and yells at his mother and father – all in this affected way that is completely useless to anyone seeking to understand him or at least be mildly entertained by him.

Stone is not ready for a commitment, either. The film asks for no emotional investment and offers no lessons or bits of wisdom at all applicable to our present reality. Most of all, he gives the audience no reason to stay in their seats for the entire three hours. There are only shaky cameras, dust to conceal the rotten CGI effects, too-long war scenes with thundering slow-motion horse hooves beating melodramatically on the ground and miniature-keyboard-demo-button "mood" music.

The whole movie plays out as if it was directed by an emotionally and creatively stunted yet firmly erect penis, void of a body or brain – a penis that somehow acquired millions and millions of dollars to make a film about the object of its lust.