Critics Pan Hollywood Portrayal of Alexander the Great

Hollywood continued its long tradition of serving up turkeys for the Thanksgiving holiday with the release yesterday of Oliver Stone's sword-and-sandal epic Alexander.

The film was well and truly roasted by America's critics, who were clearly irritated at having to spend nearly three hours sitting through the $160m (£84.8m) epic.

They dug deep to find the appropriate response to the occasion - a concerted raspberry heard across the cinematic world.

The Los Angeles Times declared Mr Stone's homage to Alexander the Great an "indifferent epic" and a "plodding endeavour" - and that was one of the better reviews.

The Toronto Star called it "not just a bad movie but a bad movie of truly epic proportions", while Entertainment Weekly magazine warned: "You know a Hollywood spectacle is in trouble when its hero yearns to go forward, vanquishing more armies and taking over more lands, but his soldiers just want to go home - and the audience sides with the weary mutineers."

Mostly, the critics found the film's long-winded narration of Alexander's conquests simply boring, complaining that Stone had lost the idiosyncratic style that made his earlier films, such as Platoon and Natural Born Killers, memorable.

They reserved most of their barbed comments for Colin Farrell's portrayal of Alexander as a tortured bisexual with an unconvincingly dyed blond mane.

"Alexander," the Boston Globe remarked, "is full of brilliant highlights, and they're all in Colin Farrell's hair."

The New York Times sympathised with the Irish actor - for having been "upstaged by his epically bad dye job".

The American novelist Gore Vidal was one of the few to come to Mr Stone's defence yesterday, telling Reuters news agency that the critics had failed to appreciate the film's "breakthrough" in making its action hero a bisexual.

However, press coverage pointed out that nothing is shown of Alexander's legendary love affair with his childhood friend Hephaistion, except a few hugs.

The Los Angeles Times said the portrayal of the relationship was "so chaste and comradely you might mistake these lovers for Eagle Scouts comparing notes on merit badges".

Moreover, the Washington Post argued that Alexander's gay side was depicted by Mr Stone with the "cruelest, least imaginative stereotyping".

"His Alexander, as expressed through the weepy histrionics of Colin Farrell, is more like a desperate housewife than a soldier. He's always crying," it said.

Another reviewer on the paper concluded: "It's amazing, really, that he can persuade his army to leave downtown Pellas, let alone take on Europe, north Africa and Asia. But follow him they do. And so we must, too, with only our luminous watches to lead us through the torturous darkness."