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Alexander

Alexander (2004)

tomatometer

16

Average Rating: 3.9/10
Reviews Counted: 194
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 162

Even at nearly three hours long, this ponderous, talky, and emotionally distant biopic fails to illuminate Alexander's life.

12

Average Rating: 4/10
Critic Reviews: 41
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 36

Even at nearly three hours long, this ponderous, talky, and emotionally distant biopic fails to illuminate Alexander's life.

audience

43

liked it
Average Rating: 2.7/5
User Ratings: 214,755

My Rating

Movie Info

The fourth film to chronicle the life of fourth-century B.C. ruler Alexander the Great, Oliver Stone's Alexander stars Colin Farrell as the titular Macedonian conqueror. The film follows the young king as he leads his forces on a bloody empirical conquest across the known world, taking large parts of Asia and the Middle East to amass a giant empire, all by the time he turned 25. Anthony Hopkins co-stars as Ptolemy I along with Rosario Dawson as Roxane, Angelina Jolie as Olympias, Jared Leto as

R, 2 hr. 55 min.

Drama, Action & Adventure, Classics

Oliver Stone, Christopher Kyle, Laeta Kalogridis

Aug 2, 2005

$34.3M

Warner Bros. Pictures

Alexander Trailer & Photos

More Photos (38)
More Trailers and Videos (16)

Cast

Critic Reviews for Alexander

All Critics (202) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (33) | Rotten (167) | DVD (33)

Though the battles have the blood-and-sinew bravado you expect from Oliver Stone, this three-hour buttnumbathon is hamstrung by a hectoring grandiosity, not new to Stone, and a nod toward caution, which is.

March 6, 2005 Comment
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A lunk-headed train wreck that looks like a tag sale in a 323 B.C. supermarket in old Peking.

December 10, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Observer | Comment
Rex Reed
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

At a reported cost of $155 million, Alexander qualifies as a super-spectacle in every respect but one -- namely in its neurotic, confused and sexually ambidextrous hero.

December 10, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Observer | Comment
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Sluggish, unsmiling, and almost as limp as the feather fans with which our heroes are gently aerated on their trip to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

November 30, 2004 Comment
Anthony Lane
New Yorker
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's just a wild, glorious, wacky mess that I found really entertaining.

November 30, 2004 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | Comment
Richard Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Call it Alexander the Grate, because, over the marathon of its three-hour running time, this wonky epic really does get on your nerves.

November 26, 2004 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Rick Groen
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

For the lucky few that see this without ever having viewed the first cut, they may wonder what all the criticism was about in the first place.

February 9, 2011 Full Review Source: ReelzChannel.com | Comment
Jeff Otto
ReelzChannel.com Source: ReelzChannel.com

Alexander the person was great. This movie isn't.

September 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Nell Minow
Common Sense Media

General mistakes all across the board contribute and reinforce each other to bring it down

May 1, 2010 Full Review Source: Dark Horizons | Comment
Garth Franklin
Dark Horizons

Stone doesn't present characters that the audience can believe in, even for one moment, as representative of their historic roles.

April 15, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comment
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

This oracular piece of hero-worship is perhaps the squarest film yet from this once-hip director.

July 23, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com

Stone's Director's Cut is still too long and dragged out to be very effective.

February 26, 2007 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
John J. Puccio
Movie Metropolis

Stone gives us some truly stirring visuals, music that soars and charges more often than not, and, um, performances that . . . Well, um, okay, about those performances . . .

September 1, 2006 Comment
Peter T. Chattaway
Christianity Today Source: Christianity Today

the tragedy of Alexander appears to be that, like his hero, Stone has tried to go too far and has lost his way.

July 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Movie City News | Comment
Douglas Pratt
Movie City News

Unwieldy and flawed, but Stone remains a tornado in an era of airless formula and -- to paraphrase our Ptolemy -- its failings are greater than most films' successes.

April 1, 2006 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Ian Nathan
Empire Magazine
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Audience Reviews for Alexander

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The version of Alexander I'm reviewing is the second or director's cut, which may or may not have some bearing on whether I influence anyone else as to whether or not they want to view this film. To be concise, this really stunk. It's a ponderous train wreck of a film, and I couldn't wait for it to end. Whether or not

October 13, 2011
Clintus M.
Clintus Maximus

Super Reviewer

Being a die hard history buff, I was quite looking forward to seeing this. Well, when I did I was very disappointed in what I saw. Alexander is a total mess of a film. Everything about the film misplaced. Oliver Stone crafts a film that's based more on fiction than fact. The film is filled with inaccuracies.

September 19, 2011
TheDudeLebowski65
Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski

Super Reviewer

Alexander Quotes

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    1. Alexander: For the freedom and glory of Greece.
    – Submitted by Georgia S (45 days ago)

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