Towards the end of the long, sometimes laughable Alexander, the film's ancient narrator, Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs) tells his scribe to "throw it away, its just an old man's rubbish," referring to the countless scrolls he had dictated recounting the life of Alexander. Unfortunately, this warning comes after three mind-numbing hours, and it would have been useful in the beginning to warn viewers of the "rubbish" that was to follow. The movie follows the life of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian warrior who conquered 90 percent of the known world. In this film, directed by Oliver Stone, the focus is on capturing the complexity of Alexander, not an examination of his campaign of world dominance, which likely would have resulted in a more interesting plot. The real Alexander must be rolling over in his grave, wondering why his brilliant military mind was portrayed in such a dull fashion.

For one, the movie has more scenes of Alexander (Colin Farrell, Swat) crying than fighting. Any self-respecting military man would be outraged to find out that his legacy is one of tears shed, rather than battles won. The movie, a long, drawn-out three hours, contains only two battle scenes.

Stone focused on the expository scenes in between the actual fighting, somehow thinking that would be more interesting. The fact that Alexander was so boring is especially surprising considering Stone's familiarity with war movies. He won an Oscar for two of his movies about the Vietnam War, Born on the Fourth of July and Platoon.

Knowing Stone's work, viewers across the country had reason to get excited. But they will be disappointed if they expect Alexander to be a full-on action flick. Instead, Stone takes a footnote from the history books and turned it into the focal point of the Alexander hinges on his homosexual relationship with Hephaistion (Jared Leto, Panic Room).

The question of Alexander's sexual orientation was certainly not the most significant aspect of his legacy, and overall, his portrayal falls short of the emotional complexity necessary in a movie that foregoes action for in-depth character analysis.

As the movie rolls on (and on, and on), Alexander's glaring weaknesses come into the spotlight. First and foremost, the writing of the movie is, at times, embarrassingly bad. The dialogue is absurd, written in an off-key, stale English that is predominant in older epic movies. In scenes where characters face a dilemma, rather than discussion, there are primitive screams that are supposed to convey angst but are actually just funny.

One could not help but feel sympathy for Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted), who played Olympias, Alexander's mother. While most characters speak with some form of a British accent, Jolie has a strange hissing accent that is hard to decipher. In addition, her character is so archetypal that she spends her time scheming and screaming.

All of the acting is absurdly over-the-top, but it is hard to blame the actors, as they are not given good material to work with. While watching this movie, one gets the impression that behavior like this is only possible in a Hollywood studio and not in real life.

Oliver Stone claims to have great respect for Alexander, and that's what makes this movie so hard to comprehend. Why would Stone create such a clumsy, misguided and overall ridiculous tribute to a figure he reveres? If audience reaction is a judge of the dramatic quality of a movie, when laughs could be heard when a central figure died toward the end of the movie, I knew I was not the only person asking when it would end.

Compared to masterful epics like Braveheart and Gladiator, Alexander falls miserably short. Audiences actually care about the lead characters of those movies, but it is very difficult to root for Alexander. At the end of this long, boring film, I was trying to determine why Stone thinks that Alexander is so great. Based on the movie, Stone must consider Alexander a whiny, spoiled brat with a big sword and an entire army ready to act on his every whim. It was hard to find a point amid all of the crying, screaming and endless talking. Perhaps the biggest sin to commit in a movie that centers on the life of one man is to make the protagonist so unlikable.