YMMV / Alexander

• Audience-Alienating Premise:
  • At least in the United States, it is hard to deny the life of Alexander the Great was simply not a popular or interesting subject, except among history buffs, and those would be always critical with the resultant product anyway due to the inherent difficulty to portray it in cinema. No less importantly, a faithful film about the wars of Alexander would inevitably draw attention to the "West vs. East" theme, which would be an endless source of political controversy regardless of how was it portrayed (especially among Iranians and Zoroastrians, who would certainly complain that the portrayal of their Persian ancestors was offensive). Reportedly, several executives who didn't share director Stone's love for the topic were resigned that making this film would be just asking for trouble.
  • Oliver Stone being the director also hurt the movie, as aside from being an already controversial filmmaker for his own political views, he had never directed a project of this nature and magnitude, and it showed in many aspects of the product.
  • The issue of Alexander's sexual orientation would invariably be also a pain for the film, ironically enough if we consider that the Hellenic culture Alexander lived in had very different concepts of sexual orientation than Western society today. As put by a journalist, "while a group of Greek lawyers wanted to take legal action against the movie because they were upset about suggestions in the film that Alexander was bisexual, campaigners for homosexual rights criticized Stone for not making Alexander openly gay," which only starts to summarize the problem.
• Awesome Music: The soundtrack might be among the lesser known of Vangelis, but it definitely delivers in the Epic Movie feel department. "Titans" is a standout.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: A large amount of people remember the film for that one scene Rosario Dawson spends in full frontal nudity.
• Better on DVD: The various longer cuts of the film are as a rule considered immensely superior to the theatrical cut. Oliver Stone himself concurs.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • It's not a surprise that the film performed well in Europe in contrast to pretty much everywhere else, thanks especially to the proverbial European sensibility for Epic Movie works set in their ancient times (as well as the film's political implications not being as relevant there as they were in the States). Even the infamous 25 Greek lawyers who complained about Alexander's sexual portrayal notably stopped complaining after actually watching the film.
  • Within Europe, Spaniards that are not into international film critiques might be downright shocked to find out Alexander was panned and received a pile of "worst thing" awards. The movie typically draws huge ratings whenever it is broadcasted in TV here, and the Spanish rating site Filmaffinity shows tellingly that, out of its list of professional reviews, all the Spanish ones are positive in stark contrast to the rest. A big reason for this, aside from the continental appeal mentioned above, was the excellent Spanish dub, which covered a lot of the film's narmiest acting and made many cringe-worthy scenes watchable.
  • Speaking about dubs, the overblown issue of accents in Anglosphere pretty much doesn't get any mention anywhere outside of it for obvious reasons. For non-English speakers, it made absolutely no difference what accent actors have and that assuming it wasn't dubbed over, nor there is any connotation between specific accent and historical epics, further making the entire thing moot.
• Ho Yay:
  • Alexander and Hephaistion. 'Nuff said.
  • Alexander and Bagoas, in the Director's Cut.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Regardless of the film itself or its controversies, fans of ancient warfare desiring to watch a big time portrayal of the Battle of Gaugamela have usually a field day with this movie. While there are a handful of artistic licenses, mainly giving it a couple scenes that in real life happened in other battles, it's undeniable that a crapton of money and effort was put into making it as faithful to real history as possible.
• Mis-blamed:
  • Oliver Stone and some others blamed Americans and their rampant homophobia when there were some complaints about a bisexual Alexander the Great. The problem is there weren't really any complaints on the American side concerning Alexander's sexuality, the complaints were coming from conservative Greeks, yet no-one called them out on it.
  • On top of that, Stone later blamed the movie's poor reviews and box office on American homophobia once again, ignoring the fact that the movie did not do well anywhere. The following year, Brokeback Mountain was a commercial and critical hit in the US, further proving America can enjoy a movie featuring LGBT characters.
  • On the other side of the fence, Stone didn't have much say in what ended up being released as the theatrical version. The film is edited in such fashion the already Narmful material starts to just grate on the audience. The DVD releases are considerably better and acclaimed as such.
• Narm:
  • It's hard enough to take Irish Macedonians seriously without taking Alexander's crazy wig changes into account, or that hideous love scene with Roxane (including, maybe especially, the little scene with Hephaistion immediately before).
    "You lawv kheem?" "He is Hephaistion."
  • Colin Farrell's performance swings back and forth between extremes, one being hyper-manly Large Ham and the other being a cripplingly wimpy mama's boy, with hilarious facial expressions and even more hilarious hair. Come to think of it, his hair deserves this entry alone.
  • Irish people have a hard enough time taking this film seriously, but when Mick Lally (a now-deceased well-known star of the soap opera Glenroe, along with a prodigious stage career) shows up, playing a freaking Macedonian horse-trader and hamming it up for all he's worth, it just takes the cake.
  • Alexander' and Cleitus' quarrel is a heartbreaking scene, but every time the camera focuses on Alexander, we also see the Indian king seated next to him looking hilariously bored as the discussion escalates.
  • Alexander seeing the statue of his father turn into the real one and nod at him.
• One-Scene Wonder: Anthony Hopkins as old Ptolemy telling the story of Alexander years after his death at the end. It's probably the best piece of acting in the whole movie and it's pretty poignant.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: GSC Game World (who made the well regarded Cossacks series) released a tie-in Real-Time Strategy game for the film, and it isn't well regarded.
• Questionable Casting: Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great, whom Roger Ebert cited as far too much of a Nice Guy to convincingly play a monomaniacal conqueror (in his review, he suggesed Woody Harrelson as a better fit). Also Angelina Jolie as Olympias, who plays Alexander's mother without any attempt to disguise her age, despite Jolie is only a year older than Farrell.
• Retroactive Recognition: Rory McCann plays Craterus, one of Alexander's generals, years before his role as the Hound.
• Tear Jerker: Hephaestion's inevitable death is made all the more poignant when Alexander, who has become progressively disillusioned with his dreams throughout the film, starts speaking to him hopefully about all the great things they have yet to accomplish and how they will grow old together. Hephaestion dies in the middle of the speech, while Alexander keeps going without even noticing. Then he does.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The story of Alexander the Great is one of most incredible in human history. Somehow they managed to take this and turn it into a badly cast narmfest that turned audiences off in droves.
  • Too bad the film didn't portray the Battle of the Hydaspes as faithfully as it did with Gaugamela. Alex not only won that one using simple yet clever strategy, King Poros was not killed but surrendered and became a respected ally.^note The elephant was okay too!Imagine Colin Farrell and Bin Buluerit (who plays Poros in the film) speaking the words that have come down through history:
  Alexander: How do you wish to be treated?
  Poros: Like a king.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: The one whose acting is nigh universally praised in the film is Anthony Hopkins as old Ptolemy I. It doesn't come off as a surprise since he's done this aplenty in films that ended up better for this sole reason.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • Colin Farrell's bright blond wig, which was about as convincing as his aforementioned performance as the legendary conqueror.
  • The heavy eyeshadow on Hephaistion, which has been described as making him look like a Drag Queen.

---