Too long? No such thing.

Rating: 10/10 (2 April 2005)

A movie this good, I just don't want to end. In Return of the King, which I compare it to only in regard to its length, I was almost yelling at Frodo to get on the boat and get it over with. Lawrence I could watch campaign across the desert for a couple hours more, at least. This is also one of those movies that seems to have gained more meaning as it ages. Take, for example, the scenes of Lawrence teaching young Arabs how to make bombs. A little more unsettling than it was originally intended to be, perhaps. But the real story of course is not one of nations and wars, but of Lawrence's struggle with his identity in the face of the horrors he witnessed, and indeed, committed. How strange that after all of the killing and plundering he experienced, he was most horrified by the lies he half-knowingly told his Arab allies. Perhaps less strange that none of those gentlemen sitting around the conference table seemed to mind.