Old and long yes- but brilliant all the same!

Rating: 9/10 (21 May 2000)

First, yes, it is very long. Secondly though it is brilliant.
I sat down to watch a 1962 heroic romanticized epic. What I got was one of the more complex, visually stunning and arresting films I'd ever seen. Half of it's brilliance was that it took me by surprise by being quite an intelligent, and sometimes dark character study. It is however, first and foremost an epic and it does live up to it- it has so many visual moments- people approaching from the wide empty deserts, full scale charges, exploding trains, and of course, the stark beauty of the desert. That and it has tons of quoteable dialogue. So don't be put off by its age or its length- Lawrence of Arabia is brilliant. And to use a cliché, they don't make 'em like this anymore.