This movie insults my intelligence

Rating: 5/10 (7 May 2006)

Where to begin...oh yes This movie is like a piece of coal in a box covered with with beautiful wrapping. Looks great on the outside but when you open it, it is completely worthless and puts a frown on your face, exactly what I got with this movie.
The director primarily decided that with movies, cinematography is best, everything else is secondary, especially dialog. There were very few lines in a movie of mammoth length, which is absolutely pathetic. I was not able to connect with either Lawrence, his friends or his enemies. The film became lazy hiding behind a beautiful shroud of desert and camels.
Let me say this, movies are stories to be told. Cinematography is crucial to this, but if you add very little story to one, it becomes a hollow log that appeases to people who love vision only enjoyed by the eye. I am not from that crowd unfortunately.
Here are some thing that could have made this a masterpiece:
1. Less time filming treks through the desert...
This got on quite a few people's nerve, despite the beautiful scenery we saw. We became bored and disconnected with Lawrence, like as if the long journey told an important story.
2. Include more dialog...
This is perhaps the worst part of the film, there wasn't any stuff to think about other than "I will do this job, yes". Through only Lawrence's actions, we could only determine that he fell in love with two Arabs going on a maverick's job to capture a Turkish hold, he killed a man who he saved earlier for murdering an Arab and was first reluctant but then enjoyed it? Never going into detail why. He gets abused by turks and...without any thought dialog other than a couple of expressions and the audience knowing he got abused, how he became so cold and angry?
3. Try to be a bit more historically accurate if you don't care about story...
This film was more like an amalgam of bits than a movie or history lesson. They didn't even include captions or dates to inform the audience how Britain came to be affaired with the campaign or Lawrence's past history.
And to top it all off, a cheesy ending with a bunch of soldiers driving by in a truck singing on how they miss home, obviously saying that Lawrence will miss the middle-east, but we never became connected with why he will miss it so much.
A huge disappointment of a movie. Yet a good example of cinematography, how long a movie should be (movies should be very long) and a good cast selection. But other than that it was more of a pretty picture with tons of money bursting out the frames.
5/10