While driving home from my other job producing content for a YouTube channel called Oh Man Disney, I listened to a podcast about Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell).  In it, the interviewed historian heaped praise on Alexander (2004) for its depiction of the famous conqueror’s victory over the forces of Darius III (Raz Degan) and the Persian army at the battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC.  When I first saw this film, I dismissed it as a nearly three-hour long load of nonsense.  However, listening to a fellow student of the past compliment it made me reconsider.  Upon further research, it should be noted that there are still a lot of problems with the movie.  At the same time, I can at least be a little more charitable as a Christian should, even if I disagree with some aspects of the content.

Speaking of disagreeing, one of my least favorite cinematic beginnings is the Citizen Kane (1941) formula where we start with the death of the main character in Babylon.  Then again, one could draw some parallels between that classic film and Alexander, but to describe that in full would be a distraction.  At any rate, with the king’s last breath, we then jump ahead forty years to another ruler in a different place, Ptolemy I (Anthony Hopkins) of Egypt.  As a younger man (Elliot Cowan), he had been one of Alexander’s trusted generals.  It will also be the elder Ptolemy’s voice that will narrate the birth and rise of Alexander.  The future empire builder is born to Olympias (Angelina Jolie), queen to King Philip II (Val Kilmer) of Macedonia, a kingdom in northern Greece.  She dotes on the young Alexander (Jessie Kamm), telling the boy that he is of divine stock rather than from his brutish father.  Alexander remains close to his mother until he is a teenager (Connor Paolo) when he impresses Philip by taming a horse previously thought to be too wild to ride.  It is the first time Philip has taken his son to be anything other than his mother’s child, and Alexander is proud of the attention.  Yet, by the time he is reaching adulthood, Philip takes another wife, a Macedonian woman unlike Olympias, which she sees as a threat to herself and Alexander.  Alexander is suspicious, too, and takes umbrage at words spoken by the new bride’s father at the wedding feast.  Alexander’s outburst enrages Philip, as does the son’s refusal to obey his father’s request for an apology.  The film then jumps ahead to Alexander being king and leading the Greek army into Asia, only coming back to what happens to Philip at the end of the proceedings.  However, because I dislike such nonlinear-ness, I will tell you now that Philip eventually forgives Alexander.  In this way, Alexander is on hand for Philip’s assassination during a celebration of Macedonia’s subduing of the rest of Greece.  Alexander blames Olympias.  While she does not deny it, she claims it was necessary for her son to fulfill his destiny to unite the world under one ruler.  He gets that chance by defeating Darius III at Gaugamela, which leads to the capture of the world-famous city of Babylon.  From this point on, Alexander set to push farther east, seeking to spread Greek culture, but also learn from others.  As the distance from Macedonia increases, the more his men grumble.  While their yearning for home is natural, they also look down on the peoples of Asia they conquer, routinely referring to them as barbarians.  This creates further friction between Alexander and his Greek cadre, which is worsened when he takes Roxana (Rosario Dawson) as a wife.  While the men view it as their king “going native,” it is Alexander’s childhood best friend and suspected lover, Hephaestion (Jared Leto), who is most aggrieved by this action.  Nonetheless, he remains devoted to Alexander, even when the king makes the seemingly mad decision to invade India.  There, the grumbling from the Greeks becomes louder, particularly from Cleitus (Gary Stretch), who had been a favorite of Philip’s.  Pointedly, Cleitus compares Alexander to Philip, enraging the heir to the point of murder.  The act shocks the Greeks, and Alexander believes he is becoming a tyrant.  He could be right as on the eve of the battle against the forces in India, he finds his most loyal followers mutinous.  Yet, he wins them back over by being in the middle of the fighting, as usual, and nearly dying while taking on an elephant with just him and that same horse he had time as a teenager.  His success inspires his army to a bloody triumph, but he sustains several injuries, including taking an arrow to the chest.  He does not die, but limping out of his tent some days later, he informs his soldiers that it is time to go home.  Yet, being back in Babylon brings him no comfort.  An ongoing issue is Olympias’ desire to come east to see her son, which he continues to put off.  Next, Hephaestion dies of typhus, causing Alexander to fly into a rage, blaming the doctor and even Roxana.  It is only her mention of the fact that she is with child that keeps him from choking her to death.  Instead, he goes drinking with his generals where it is hinted that they poison him, who then squabble over how to divide the empire.  This is what the older Ptolemy suggests to his scribes to whom he has been dictating this story.  Before it can become official record, though, he revises his words, saying that Alexander’s strength simply gave out and extolling the perceived greatness of the man.

What I think is great is how I reined in my synopsis of Alexander.  Then again, it is not so hard when you consider the length of battle and dialogue scenes.  I also wrote “perceived greatness” because there are some obvious Catholic criticisms I could level against the film.  First, no conqueror should be glorified, though, to its credit, the film does do well to discuss the dangers of pursuing glory.  Secondly, there is the sexuality on display.  Of course, Christianity is not pro-homosexuality, but Greek culture was more accepting, so it is at least historically accurate.  And again, the Catholic Church teaches that such acts, while sinful, do not mean that person is subhuman.  This is not a copout, but we are all sinners.  There is a deeper cut to be teased out here, one that is not covered in any manner in the movie, but can be inferred.  Among Alexander’s generals was Seleucus, who is not mentioned by name.  He would go on to rule over the Seleucid Empire as Seleucus I Nicator, which encompassed the largest portion of land conquered by Alexander.  This included the Holy Land, modern-day Israel.  It also replaced the previous Persian Empire.  These developments were not good for the ancient Jewish people, and you can read about this in the Bible.  The prophetic works, as well as First and Second Maccabees outline how it had been the Persians who had freed them from Babylonian captivity.  Further, the first Persian Emperor, Cyrus, allowed them to return to Israel and practice their religion as they saw fit.  It was the Greeks who attempted to curtail these freedoms.  Indeed, the new ruler is depicted in Scripture as God’s chosen instrument.  If you read the books of Maccabees, you will see how they attempted to instill Greek cultures upon Jewish peoples.  “Instill” is too light a word.  They forced apostasy and executed anyone who did not comply.  While this is admittedly tangential to the film, it does fit with those who question its historical veracity.  Alexander is portrayed as a conqueror, but a largely benevolent one.  The Bible, as it so often does, shows a different side to such actions.

Thus, like many of its cinematic cousins, Alexander is a different story in terms of how it presents the past.  While many of the things you see depicted in it occurred, the notion of Alexander as a benevolent unifier is farfetched.  That, along with its length and sexual explicitness, make this one a pass.