Scenic, boring, incoherent gay fantasy.

Rating: Null/10 (5 April 2005)

The reputation of this movie is amazing. Yes, it has some arresting desert scenes--though far too many. But otherwise it is in almost every way a very bad film. There's an interesting story behind it, but that story is barely suggested by a thin and wooden script.
Mainly it's about the British superman, Lawrence, who out-Arabs the Arabs with his ability to endure pain. Beyond that it's a gay fantasy, in which Lawrence gets to parade around in flowing robes, with a phallic dagger at his waist, exchanging soulful words and glances with Omar Sharif, accompanied by his adored young boys, and even get sodomized by a Turk. The gay man triumphs over the manly army types, so he's a double superman.
Since this love can't speak its name it comes out in the unexplored, weirdly incoherent suggestions of inner conflict in Lawrence. He kills and says he likes it. Why? Who knows. The whole movie is a set of dots too far apart to connect. A few map shots might have helped understand the military situation, but all we get is names. That desert is too hot to cross, so they cross it. They trudge and trudge. Then they get there. The episodes, and the dialog, seem to float in the ether, without adequate context for understanding or emotional involvement. While Lean's camera caresses O'Tooles swishy sashaying, ice-blue eyes and golden hair, O'Toole emotes with a scenery-chewing extremity unseen since the silents. I think Valentino was more subtle. Alec Guinness contends for honors in the overacting contest, with his blue-eyed, over-enunciating sheik. Only Jack Hawkins gives a decently restrained performance.
Jarre's music is jarring. Too loud and poured over all like syrup. The movie screams EPIC with its big shots and cast of hundreds, and apparently a lot of people buy it. But this emperor is naked, and after all these years, badly sunburned.