OK, so I did see Ray twice actually. I think it was better the second time although I would have to be pressed to want a third viewing.
But the real story of the week was the not-so-appalling-as-the-critics-would-have-you-believe Alexander. We agreed that there is something to be said for reading all of the very highly critical reviews of the film before seeing it so you expect the worst film ever and can be more or less surprised.
It wasn’t the worst film ever, but I have no need to ever see it again.
The main problem was that the flick was obviously rushed into production to head off all the other fellows who were working on an Alexander movie. As such, Oliver Stone never really figured out what kind of a film he wanted to make or what he wanted to say. As near I can figure it he was trying to implicate the government and the CIA in a plot with a grassy bowman on a Babylonian knoll wounding and killing Alexander the Great? No? You could have fooled me.
Two things leap up and repeatedly try to ruin this flick entirely: the stupid movie cliches and Colin Farrell. Angelina Jolie is an example of the first, she’s got the total wicked witch voice coupled with snakes slithering all over the place. I kept waiting for her to ask the mirror who was the fairest of them all. Colin Farrell is, well, Colin Farrell. He’s great in bad boy roles, in small character parts, etc but he does not have the hint of madness in the eyes that the role of a great leader needs. There’s one scene lifted entirely from Braveheart with Alexander riding along his ranked troops doing one of those “blood and liberty” speeches which were so emotionally rousing in oh – just about every other movie ever made. In this one, it fell totally flat, you felt nothing, you didn’t care.
And that’s really the epitaph for this stunningly beautiful but badly written film. You just don’t care.