HIGH DEF UNIVERSE

I can't think of any other filmmaker who has been given the chance to revisit and re-cut his film more than Oliver Stone has with Alexander, other than perhaps George Lucas. There's now four versions of Alexander; the original theatrical cut that ran 2 hours and 55 minutes, then the Director's Cut at 2 hours and 47 minutes, then the Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut at about 3 hours and 34 minutes long, and now for the tenth anniversary of the film's release, this new Ultimate Cut runs 8 minutes shorter at 3 hours and 28 minutes long with an intermission. As someone who bought the Director's Cut and then the Final Cut, I have to admit that I was peeved at the sight of each new release. And now we have supposedly the last effort by Stone to shape Alexander into the film he always wanted but was unable to deliver before due to the film's rushed release and the violence and sexuality that troubled some of the movie-going public.

As Oliver Stone later said, "Originally, I did my best to deliver a thrilling movie on a very brief post production schedule, but was frustrated in the end because I wanted the material to tell Alexander’s story with greater nuance and complexity." So with this new Ultimate Cut, Stone went back to the outline of his original script which he feels reflects his vision of the film. According to Stone, “I’ve tried throughout this process to achieve what I believe is the appropriate balance between the inner and outer journeys undertaken by this extraordinary man. Free from earlier constraints, I’ve continued to pursue this great story, and I think I have at last achieved a film that tells a story as it has never been told.” To achieve that goal, Stone has added and deleted scenes and rearranged the structure of the film into something entirely new.

The overall story of Alexander doesn't change that much in this latest version, as the core story remains the same as it tells the tale of the rise and downfall of Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell), who conquered Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, and was in the process of obtaining India when it all unravelled. The previous versions of the film were presented in a fairly chronological order from Alexander's youth spent in a tug of war between his two parents, King Phillip (Val Kilmer) and Olympias (Angelina Jolie), to his days as a conquering hero. In this Ultimate Cut however, Stone starts the film with the Battle of Guagamela instead of leaving it as the end of the first act like before which throws the viewer right into the action which I really liked. I've always liked movies that that kick off in the middle of the something exciting like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars did. It's a much better choice that to watch a young Alexander mope around for a half hour before anything happens.

From that point on, the film goes back and forth in time as the rest of Alexander's story is filled in. Although this version is just eight minutes shy of having the longest running time of the four different cuts, it seemed to move the quickest. By cross-cutting the past with the future, Stone keeps the film moving a lot more in this version and it's a welcome change. I didn't feel that the jumping around hurt the film or made it less understandable. From his youth spent learning from Aristotle (Christopher Plummer) along with his best friend Hephaistion (first Patrick Carroll and later Jared Leto), to his assimilation of most of the known world in his adulthood, it all made sense and was framed well by comments from Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) throughout the film. What none of the versions have done well though is to give us a reason to care about Alexander or to understand why he felt he needed to take over the world and rename each city Alexandria. Was it simply megalomania or something more such as the emotional baggage he carried from his adversarial parents?

It doesn't help that Colin Farrell is badly miscast as Alexander. Farrell is a good actor when given good material, but in this film he never really seems to grasp his character. Part of the blame falls to the script that does nothing to make Alexander less like a cypher to the audience. Farrell put his all into the role but it just wasn't enough. The supporting cast fares much better but all of them are only briefly on screen. Jolie and Kilmer are great as the parents, Hopkins does his usual awesome job as the narrator, and Jared Leto, Johnathan Rhys Meyers, and Christopher Plummer do the best they can with the small roles that they've been given. Rosario Dawson gives a fierce performance as the barbarian woman Roxane who Alexander marries, but she is quickly phased out of the movie.

There's just so much that Stone wants to include in this movie (both events and characters) that the movie has a hard time balancing them all. This would have made a much better miniseries on HBO than as a movie. It's a shame because it's obvious that this is Stone's dream project and there's many fantastic scenes where he actually nails it and you can see what he was going for. It's unfortunate however, that's there's also scenes that don't reach those artistic heights despite everyone's concerted efforts. Like Alexander himself, the one thing that this film doesn't lack is ambition and even if it doesn't fully work, it's still an admirable effort from a master filmmaker.

Since Warners was kind enough to include both this new Ultimate Cut and the Original Theatrical Cut (which has never been released on Blu-ray before), I'll cover the extras on both discs.