On A. Jolie

On A. Jolie

Last night, I wasted three hours of my life watching Oliver Stone's dreadful biopic Alexander.

In this crime against celluloid, Alexander's mother is played, in perhaps one of the most hilarious miscastings in Hollywood history, by fish-lipped superstar Angelina Jolie. She was born in 1975, Colin Farrell in the title role in 1976. This obvious problem is addressed by making Ms Jolie wear her hair up, and by speaking in a number of bizarre accents which change as the film progresses.

Ange's career has traded on just two things. Those enormous lips. OK, four things - I, too, have wasted my life watching Tomb Raider.

Now, I'm going to go against conventional wisdom here, but Ms Jolie, on the face of her career to date, is a bit rubbish, isn't she? Has she appeared on Emmerdale? Or won a TV reality show? No, she has not. Then, why can't she act?

Mr Neil Gaiman and Mr Robert Zemeckis have the right idea in the forthcoming performance-capture version of Beowulf, in which Ange play's Grendel's Mother. For the part-animated process, Ms Jolie had to spend several weeks dressed in a skin-tight rubber suit, and some of this time in front of a camera.

Perhaps they're not even making a film. If I had the money, I'd tell A. Jolie she's got to wear a skin tight rubber suit for weeks on end, and I'd be the one standing around taking notes.

The downside, I suppose, would be having to watch Anthony Hopkins spending several weeks in a skin-tight rubber suit. We've all got to suffer for our art.