Softness, irrational emotions and bloating are just some of the symptoms that plague Oliver Stone's Alexander, unless you count the bombast or the senseless melodrama.

Yes, the buzz surrounding Collin Farrell's blonde ambition (a cross between Doris Day and Ellen DeGeneres) is well worth the ten bucks, but Stone's intent to show the conflicted emotions of the legendary leader reduces Farrell's smoldering intensity to a simmer. Let's face it, those Greek gods were all a mother-loving/father-killing mess, but Alexander in the hands of Stone, is a blubbering head case who is utterly unlikable and unrelatable in anyway. He cries in every other scene and I'm pretty sure that three hours in a dark theater with this incarnation of Alexander will help you think "bee-otch" is a more appropriate title than "the great."

And with that, let me say that Stone is more accurate than what Hollywood usually begets of epics. No doubt comparisons will be drawn to this summer's Troy, the MTV-style re-imagination of Homer's poetry, but where that film bent to entertain, Alexander is more meant to explore. Stone just doesn't make movies, he plumbs the human heart and dissects character, which is usually what makes his work so engrossing. And he does not stray from the formula too much here.

Old Ptolemy (a delightful Anthony Hopkins) introduces us to Alexander the Great in a way that we all got to know him—through storytelling and legend. Having grown up with the future leader, Ptolemy gives the tall tale a sense of validity even when he's just filling in the blanks. From the womb, young Alexander (played by Connor Paolo, a dead ringer for Ferrell) is groomed by his ambitious mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie) to be the next great king of Macedon. And when his King Phillip (Val Kilmer) is mysteriously assassinated, Alexander inherits a nation and an army even before he's out of his teens.

As king, Alexander famously unites the Greeks in a war against Persia—a task that his father only dreamt of—and nearly takes over the world. But in all his glory, comes his demise. His troop begin to doubt him and growing more and more insecure, Alexander blindly punishes his conspirators and with that, divides his people.

His one true confidant is Hephaistion (Jared Leto) with whom we all know by now is Alexander's lover, but all the hype about the "steamy love scenes," is gravely misguided. Although Leto and Farrell do a good job of conveying all their pent-up onscreen love for each other, complete with googly-eyed embraces, there's nothing "steamy" about their relationship. All they do is hold each other and weep, which is really sad if you think about it—even Mark Antony had Cleopatra and the men of his choice.

Ferrell shows much more range than his usual grunting roles, but his multi-faceted performance is drowned in the overwrought sentimentality and uneven script. The desert battle sequence is as large in scope as promise and really amazing on the eyes, but do not make up for the film's many bombastic monologues, including many of Jolie's, spoken in a strange Romanian accent.

What Stone, the other true star of the film, suffers from here is excess. He usually has this way with keeping the film's nucleus firmly intact while unleashing a circus around it, but in this film, the center gets scattered in the mess. The result feels like an "A&E Channel" film, but it could be worse. It could be a "Lifetime TV" movie, but add one more sob scene or dramatic monologue and it tips the scale that way down.