Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut: Two-Disc Special Edition Blu-ray Disc Set Review

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Title: Alexander Revisted: The Final Cut: Two-Disc Special Edition

Region: A

Media: Blu-ray Disc

Genre: Biographical Drama

Stars: Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson, and Anthony Hopkins

Writers: Oliver Stone and Christopher Kyle

Director: Oliver Stone

Feature length: 167 minutes

Extras: Introduction By Oliver Stone, Feature Length Audio Commentary With Writer/Director Oliver Stone, Commentary By Historian/Alexander Biographer Robin Lane Fox, Fight Against Time: Oliver Stone’s Alexander Documentary, Three Part Feature Length Documentary, Vangelis Scores Alexander Featurette, Theatrical Trailers

Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired and English, French, and Spanish Language Subtitles

Packaging: Elite Blue 2-Disc BD Case

Chapter Stops: 47

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 2004/Blu-ray Disc Release: 2007

Theatrical Distributor: Warner Brothers Pictures

Home Video Distributor: Warner Home Video

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

The saying “Fortune favors the bold” seems to sometimes go hand in hand with saying “The light that glows twice as bright lasts half as long.” Alexander The Great ruled over an empire he created that spanned all the way from ancient Greece to Egypt, Persia, and India and he accomplished this great task in his early thirties, but for reasons that outside of the film may be forever debated, he never lived to see his 35^th birthday. The film adaptation had been in development with various producers overseas and Master American Filmmaker Oliver Stone since 1989, but it would take fifteen years to climb the very tall mountain as Stone puts it to succinctly bring a biographical dramatization of the life of Alexander to the big screen. One almost wonders why a miniseries for a premium cable/satellite network like HBO was not considered since Stone would have had the freedom to depict the violence and sexuality of the time unhindered on a channel like HBO and he would also have more time to tell his story. Editing of the theatrical version of Alexander took seven months and the film had a mixed reception when it finally premiered on the big screen in the fall of 2004. Stone then spent another ten months recutting the film to create his Director’s Cut, which was released on DVD in 2005 along with the original theatrical version. Stone describes in both the video introduction and his new feature length audio commentary created it seems for the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD release since the regular DVD edition of Alexander Revisited does not include the commentary, that he still could not get Alexander out of his mind even after cutting the film down and trimming some of the scenes as well as changing things a bit by using alternate takes and so forth because ideally he wanted Alexander to play like the great sword and sandal epics he grew up with complete with an intermission to allow people to absorb what they had seen before taking in the second half. As a result he was able to go back and recut Alexander again and this time make it his final definitive cut that is actually longer than the previous cuts. Though Stone does not refer to this film as being any different from Alexander other than presenting his preferred version of the film, unlike Francis Coppolla who made a distinction between Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now Redux, I still prefer to think of Alexander Revisted as being a separate film from the two previous versions of Alexander. At the very least, it makes referring to this new cut easier considering the three versions now available on DVD.

Of the three edits, I like Alexander Revisted the best because it makes certain elements clearer than the previous films. We get little captions now that tell us exactly where the armies are during the battle scenes and the non linear storytelling works best here because now Stone gets us into the action sooner and then through the various segments is able to capture the dramatic echoes in the story so that everything reverberates more cohesively than before. The fight scenes have been enhanced a bit with CGI and are bloodier and now I think the battle toward the end of the film in India where Alexander upon his horse charges against the elephant seems more straightforward. I might be wrong, but I think there is less of the sudden color change that occurs in this sequence too.

Certain elements of Alexander’s bisexuality are also made clearer from a cultural point of view. The scenes with Christopher Plumber as Aristotle now clarify elements that I think some viewers misunderstood. Aristotle does not in my opinion encourage bisexual relationships. His distinction is when men lay together to share ideas for the betterment of a society or themselves and so forth is a way of referring to the brotherhood men share as colleagues, friends, and patriots. Call it male bonding if you like, but I don’t believe Aristotle was condoning anything that I think might be considered of a more carnal nature. He acknowledges it’s existence and Stone acknowledges in a few scenes that refers to Alexander’s eunuch being the Persian King Darius’ favorite boy and there’s a scene that looks as though Val Kilmer, who plays Alexander’s father, buggers a young man at a celebration, but as can be seen in many contemporary stories that take place during antiquity, homosexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality, and things that I don’t even know if there is a name for, existed and seemed to be more liberally accepted in pagan times than today. The Freudian relationship Alexander has with his mother (Angelina Jolie) contrasts well with his seeking approval from his father and one might say that Alexander was running from his mother and trying to get his father approval by reaching further than his father had been able to do before. The Rosario Dawson character is in some ways Alexander taking a first wife that he knows his own men will consider a foreigner the way his father did and yet there are always political reasons behind the unions of politically powerful, the wealthy, and even the famous that ultimately can be seen throughout history. When Alexander finally decides to return to Babylon he sees an image of his father gesturing with approval that I feel supports this idea. He ran from his mother, but married a woman tough and of a different ethnic persuasion like his mother, but while he was running from his mother and in Freudian sense, marrying her at the same time, Alexander is motivated unconsciously to reach his father though his father being dead is beyond his mortal reach.

One also must also understand that the sexuality of Alexander is only one facet of a very complicated historical figure and it would be impossible to cover every bit of Alexander’s psyche given the limitations of a feature film without making other important aspects of his character fall out of balance. The relationship he has with his mother and father as well as his creation of a unified fighting style for his armies and the emphasis on unifying a world after conquering it are all important to explore as well, which Stone attempts to cover as best as he can. Yet I believe that even with all of the historical artifacts and texts left behind over the centuries and studied by experts, in the end we can only get a glimpse at the shadow that was the man, but never truly know the man himself.

Oliver Stone is a master filmmaker and storyteller so his feature length audio commentary, which runs over two discs as the film is separated with the intermission occurring after chapter 27 with the first half running at approximately 2 hours and 6 minutes and the second half running one hour and 27 minutes, is excellent as I would expect from his previous disc commentaries. The feature length comments by Historian Robin Lane Fox are also very interesting in part because as a consultant on the film, he brings perspective to the screen action that is different from Oliver Stone’s. He also has no problem pointing out where the film takes dramatic license. O liver Stone also notes where he took license with historical facts and why from time to time in his commentary track too.

Alexander Revisted is presented in a beautiful VC-1 encoded widescreen aspect ratio of approximately (2.4:1) and the picture quality is flawless with up to a 1080p high definition resolution presentation where available. An aggressive English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack has also been included along with English Subtitles for the Death and Hearing Impaired and English, French, and Spanish Language Subtitles encoded onto both discs as options. A surprisingly entertaining and in-depth behind the scenes documentary is included that can be viewed individually in three parts under the subheadings Resurrecting Alexander, Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good, and The Death Of Alexander or can be viewed using a “Play All” feature that presents the three parts as one feature length documentary of approximately 86 minutes and 44 seconds. A short companion featurette with Vangelis discussing the film’s score (4:29) is also included as well as a new documentary entitled Fight Against Time: Oliver Stone’s Alexander (1:16). The majority of the extra value features are presented in a 16 by 9 widescreen aspect ratio too. The theatrical teaser (1:45) and trailer (1:53) wrap up the extra value features included within the set.

Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut: Two-Disc Special Edition is now available on Blu-ray Disc as well as HD DVD and DVD separately at retailers on and offline courtesy of Warner Home Video.

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