Movie Review: Lawrence of Arabia 11th July 2007

It’s been a while since I reviewed anything and since I just watched this 3 hour 36 minute marathon of a film it seemed fitting to do a review of it. I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy this movie but less than 10 minutes into it I knew it was going to be great. The story is that T. E. Lawrence, an officer in the British Army is sent to Arabia, whilst there he impresses a prince with his straight to the point and honest opinions and soon ends up leading the various Arabian tribes along the path of independance.

There is a great plot line, good well driven character development, the music is quite fitting and the scenary is magnificent. One thing I did note that made this movie stand out amongst most movies today is that even with over 3 hours of movie there was no attempt to throw in any sort of “Lawrence getting it on with the ladies” segments. Most movies now seem to go like this “Man runs around blowing shit up, his usually feeble girl who thinks she has something to prove tags along, bodies everywhere, enemies closing in, but wait, queue the sleezy music, they have to get it on at least once before the end credits”.

I saw quite alot of things that I thought were similar to the Dune story apart from the obvious “They both are mostly desert based”. Lawrence seems to bear a striking resembelance to Paul Atreides in his personia and actions. Towards the start of the movie Lawrence goes out of his way to learn the ways of the desert, they also make a strong point about how important water is and how it should be conservatively utilised. Lawrence is portrayed as having “gone local” at one stage of the movie by the fact he acts and dresses like the Arabs, similar to how Paul Atreides does with the Fremen. When Lawrence receives his white robes he is also given his first Arabian dagger which he seems to really like, Paul was also given his own dagger, the Fremen Crysknife. Peter O’Toole plays Lawrence in the movie, as the film progresses further into the desert his blue eyes appear to change shade, I think that’s due to him getting more sun tanned and the fact he’s wearing blazing white clothes later on. His eyes really do become striking to see much like the way Fremens eyes are blue from the amount of spice they intake. The biggest similarity is that Lawrence rides huge sandworms in an effort to defeat his enemies. haha ok so you got me that time, he doesn’t really do that. There’s more things that are similar if you keep your eyes open, not just with Dune, other movies take bits and pieces from this masterpiece.

I don’t think I’d watch a re-make of this movie since re-makes seem to be making a come back lately. The original was really good and I think anyone trying to improve on it is really just insulting the original.

If you have the time to watch it or an “easy to jump to where you last viewed” facility then you should really check out this film, in the words of Tony the Tiger; It’s Grrreat!