Alexander Revisited: The Unrated Final Cut (DVD)

Nine years earlier, nine years later, Macedonian left, Macedonian center, blah, blah, blah... Alexander Revisited is no better than the previous two cuts as it is still a jumbled catastrophe told in such a non-linear fashion your head almost spins. I will admit Stone has added what seems like everything he cut in earlier versions as this cut of Alexander is 58 minutes longer than the earlier director's cut and 50 minutes longer than the theatrical cut, but along with action and theme we also get speeches that would put to sleep just about anyone.

Stone has talked openly about what he would have done differently in an effort to sell the film to an American audience, but none of those changes were made here. He was quoted in Variety saying, "If I could go back, I'd have put events in linear order and limited the voiceovers. I'd have gotten the film to 2½ hours and taken out the homosexuality for the U.S. market and for countries sensitive to such things, like Korea or Greece. Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness." Well folks, the film is not in linear order and it never has been as it bounces back and forth nine years here, nine years there. The voiceover has not been limited as Anthony Hopkins continues to babble on and on. The one major change that I respect, but it still doesn't make this film work, is that Alexander's homosexual tendencies are no longer hidden in any way. As a matter of fact you get a close-up shot of Colin Farrell's goody bag if you are into that sort of thing.

On top of over-bearing jumps in time, horrendous voice over and speeches that take forever the only thing I actually enjoyed in this cut was that several violent scenes described to me by a friend that happened to be an extra on set and posted here, here and here were back in the film. This includes elephant intestines and a mean body stomp by a massive elephant foot in which a Macedonian soldier is splattered to pieces (very cool but doesn't help the movie).

People have asked why I would revisit Alexander again as I gave it an "F" when I reviewed the theatrical cut and a poor review when I reviewed the director's cut DVD. Well, it is for a couple reasons, and I believe those reasons are the same for anyone reading this review:

1. I am interested in the story and really wanted it to be good.
2. A director getting a chance to cut his movie three times and have it actually released by the studio is not something that happens often, if ever, and I was interested in seeing what Stone did.

These are the obvious reasons and while I didn't really expect the film to be any better it was interesting. The most interesting thing is probably how the movie actually never changes, it only gets longer. The homosexual aspect of the story was still in the theatrical cut just not to this extent and all the bad dialogue existed, it just didn't exist for so long. For anyone that has seen the director's cut of Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven knows that a film truly can change if a director is given a second chance. Unfortunately for Oliver Stone even his third try still fails. The story is no different here, just elaborated and extended and ultimately, still boring.