Structurally bold move immediately establishes him as a heroic, proactive figure rather than making the audience trawl first through his childhood and adolescence. In length, it’s now up there with the big boys, nestling neatly between “Ben-Hur” (211 minutes) and the restored, recut “Lawrence of Arabia” (215 minutes).īiggest change is Stone’s decision to move the first of the two battles, Gaugamela, right upfront, after Alexander’s opening death sequence. In his intro (this version has no director’s commentary), Stone explicitly states he was inspired by the roadshow epics of the ’50s and ’60s, and to that end has now given the picture an official intermission at the point where there was always, effectively, a short pause for breath: after Alexander (Colin Farrell) and the young Ptolemy gaze at the Hindu Kush prior to the push towards India.įilm now has a classic two-part structure (I: 126 minutes, II: 87 minutes), here spread across two discs. With a freedom he’s never enjoyed, Stone has thrown everything into the pot and shaped it according to the dramatic requirements of the material, period. If the 2004 theatrical “Alexander” (175 minutes) was a rough but powerful brew uncorked in haste, and the 2005 director’s cut DVD (166 minutes) a much smoother ride, “Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut” is the whole damned, magnificent vision - a 213-minute journey, complete with intermission, into the heart and soul of a culture and personality.
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