Alexander, the King of Macedonia, leads his legions against the giant Persian Empire. After defeating the Persians, he leads his army across the then known world, venturing farther than any westerner had ever gone, all the way to India.
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.
– Anthony Lane,
New Yorker,
30 Nov 2004
rotten:
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.
– Andrew Sarris,
New York Observer,
10 Dec 2004
rotten:
A lunk-headed train wreck that looks like a tag sale in a 323 B.C. supermarket in old Peking.
– Rex Reed,
New York Observer,
10 Dec 2004
rotten:
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.
– Peter Travers,
Rolling Stone,
6 Mar 2005
rotten:
By summoning his inner classicist, [director] Stone has made an excruciating disaster for the ages.