By Michael Sihksnel

Although Colin Farrell may be an Irish heartthrob, his newest flick Alexander is not sending anyone rushing to see it in theatres, and it’s been hard to miss the treatment that it has been getting critically. 

However, critical reviews do not often tell the whole story, so I fired up my laptop and visited www.epinions.com to get the real scoop on what America was thinking about another epic sword-fighting production.

Rocky from Illinois summed up the movie as follows, “Two hours and 40 minutes of boring, uninspiring dialogue later, I was waiting for the movie to end by the two hour mark. Even with the big fight at the end, Oliver Stone’s direction of this movie was flat out horrible.”

However, he did not hate all aspects of the movie. Being the good Irishman he is, Colin Farrell managed to hold himself with pride. Rocky continued, “I can’t deny Colin Farrell that he didn’t put emotion into his character, because he brought Alexander’s character to life really well…but for a movie that’s almost three hours in length, if not more, there needs to be a better script.”

Rieve from New York, offered the best quote, “If you have any care for film, acting or the history of Alexander, this movie will offend you in its awfulness.” 

Rieve adds: “The film attempts to address Alexander’s conquests, personal relationships and family history, and fails at all three.”

This may seem a bit harsh, but another person that offered a better review. Triniman, from Winnipeg, Canada, offered, “Troy and Gladiator seem succinct in comparison to this three hour story about Alexander the Great…those two films seem almost pedestrian compared to the complexities of Alexander.”

I would quote more, but the grammar was unfixable. He liked it though, and gave it four out of five, which is markedly more then the 2.0 average given on the website.

The last review is by someone who has some degree of movie knowledge. Ken Knox is a playwright, novelist, and journalist, who writes, “It’s always disconcerting to see a once-exciting filmmaker stumbling around like he has no clue what he’s doing. Anyone who sat through the mess that was Francis Ford Coppola’s embarrassingly Harlequin Romance-inspired version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula — and who was smart enough to know when they were being manipulated by cheap thrills — understands that, while excess can sometimes be a good thing (I point to Ridley Scott’s mind-numbingly brilliant popcorn epic Gladiator as an example), it’s far often the one thing that can destroy a filmmaker’s vision.” 

The critical reviews of Alexander were very harsh, but I don’t think that they do it justice. It was far more interesting reading the amateur reactions, and they both point to the same thing. Don’t see this movie.