Alexander is an historical drama so disconnected from actual history that by film's end I had the sensation of floating in the mossy dankness of Oliver Stone's bong water. Director Stone presents a highly inventive look at the life of America's first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
Colin Farrell portrays Hamilton as a man haunted by visions of buggy crashes and spooky Native American rituals. Farrell competently captures the dichotomy of Hamilton, a man brilliant enough to write The Federalist Papers yet sophomoric enough to engage in drinking games with Samuel Adams (the two men are credited with inventing "quarters," though they originally played it with the ha'penny).
Angelina Jolie sizzles as Maria Reynolds, the married woman whose affair with Hamilton triggered his eventual downfall. Interestingly, the tattoo on the small of her back, visible during lovemaking scenes, might have come across as an anachronistic distraction, but Maria explains it away as a youthful indiscretion during the Whisky Rebellion of 1794. Val Kilmer is in typically campy form as Hamilton's friend-turned-rival Aaron Burr. After winning the famous duel, Burr stands over the prostrate Hamilton and taunts, "Not a bad duel, Hamilton. You came in second place."
Anthony Hopkins gives a phoned-in performance as the wizened Benjamin Franklin (actually, the acting is flat enough to have spewed from the fax machine). Stone must have told Hopkins to play Franklin as a Colonial-era Yoda, how else to explain Sir Anthony's goofy syntax as he drones, "Strong is Jefferson. Mind what you have learned. My kite this is."
Ultimately, Alexander is a missed opportunity, a chance to show the gestation of American monetary policy aborted by a director obsessed with his own kaleidoscopic view of reality.
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