Grade: D+

Verdict: This "Alexander" isn't Great. It's not even Pretty Good.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

Oliver Stone's "Alexander" is a Big Fat Greek Bust.

The life of Alexander the Great -- the Macedonian conqueror who ruled the known world before he died in 323 B.C., at age 32 -- is a helluva story. One that's been curiously neglected by Hollywood (though Steven Spielberg once thought about it, as did Gregory Peck, who planned to play Alexander's father).

Perhaps that's because it's possible Alexander liked oysters and snails. Or perhaps no one wanted to cough up the reported $150 million Stone spent on everything from rearing pachyderms to massive battles to a CGI Babylon that, truth be told, isn't as impressive as the one created by D.W. Griffith almost 90 years ago in his silent masterpiece, "Intolerance."

Stone's movie has all those things — and more. The extravagant feasts and elaborate entertainments that welcomed Alexander (Colin Farrell) as he made he way across the East to India. A sensual Angelina Jolie as Olympias, Alexander's snaky mother. A roaring one-eyed Val Kilmer as Alexander's immoderate dad, King Philip.

What he doesn't have is an Alexander.

In the few short years, Farrell has been thrust upon movie audiences like some high-fashion decree from Paris. Skirts will be short and Colin Farrell will be considered a very hot actor who's also very good ("Phone Booth?" -- you've got to be kidding).

Farrell has the muscles of a conqueror, but he doesn't have the face of one. His handsome Irish Boy-o mug looks as ridiculous under a war helmet as Michael Dukakis' did when he was running for president in 1988. Further, he lacks a leader's charisma. Russell Crowe could have him for lunch. So could Richard Burton (who played the same role in 1956's "Alexander the Great"). Or, if you get right down to it, Elizabeth Taylor, whose Cleopatra had more royal moxie than Farrell's Alexander does.

Granted, the unfortunate star doesn't have much of a script to work with. Stone tells the story in flashback, as one of Alexander's former officers, Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins), now comfortably ruling Egypt, dictates his memoirs to a scribe. Not only is the framing device a talk-heavy distraction, but it includes some things Ptolemy couldn't possibly know — pillow talk with his boyhood friend and great love Hephaestion (Jared Leto) or the inevitable Oedipal kiss Olympia plants on her son.

Stone never develops a strong point of view. Are we to see Alexander as a visionary, undermined by underlings, like, say ... Oliver Stone? Is he an ambitious megalomaniac? Or is he a nice Greek boy who gives up his personal desires to realize a dream of we-are-the-world tolerance by bringing different nations together under one rule?

"Alexander" is a sprawling epic that truly sprawls (not a compliment). For who-knows-what reason, almost everyone sounds Irish, except for Jolie, who apparently hails from Transylvania. The battles are spectacular, but Peter Jackson's already been there, done that -- and done it better in his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. (Stone's penchant for hand-held, in-the-midst-of-battle, camerawork doesn't help.) Worst of all, the film's episodic nature makes it virtually impossible to connect emotionally with any of the characters.

Stone has made splendid movies, like "Platoon" and "Nixon." Even his more controversial films — "Natural Born Killers" or "JFK" — bear the mark of a gifted filmmaker.

"Alexander" floats aimlessly on a sea of fact and fiction, looking for some kind of safe harbor where it can pull itself together and become a Good-God-Almighty Epic. But for that, the movie needs a heroic leader and there isn't one — on screen or off.