As the title of my review says, this movie was a great disappointment that did not live up to the hype. Let me break this down into bullet points to make everyone's life (mine included) easier. Spoilers dead ahead.
1. The special effects/green screen were not very good, however, since this is a low budget production I don't want to rag on that too much.
2. The acting was... sadly bland. I really wanted to like Tom Barber-Duffy as T. E. Lawrence but there was nothing memorable about his performance.
3. The script was all over the place. There was a lot of odd details from Lawrence's life that were shoehorned into the film but didn't seem to have much to do with the actual plot. Also, the sheer amount of conspiracy theories in this movie was exhausting, as were the producer's claims that this is all fact. If so, then I'd like to see some proof, preferably proof that was not written by Richard Aldington or Matthew Eden.
4. I was annoyed by the way the film handled Lawrence's sexual orientation and love life. There were references to Dahoum (a young Arab lad Lawrence was very close with when he worked as an archaeologist before the war) but his significance was not explained. Various characters referred to Lawrence as "sadomasochistic" and "a queer". On the other hand Lawrence was shown having quite a significant amount of PDA with Florence Hardy (his friend Thomas Hardy's widow). I found that particularly odd because it's a well known fact mentioned in pretty much every biography that Lawrence was deeply uncomfortable with touch and wouldn't even shake hands with his friends, let alone kiss or hug them. Also, there is no proof that his and Florence Hardy's relationship was more than just friendship. So my question is: is the producer really THIS UNCOMFORTABLE with the idea of T. E. Lawrence possibly not being straight?
5. I was shocked by the amount of very blatant references to David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" ranging from visual references to literally naming a character William Potter and using the iconic "the trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts" line (anyone remember the match scene from Lean's film?). In fact, I think the William Potter scene was inserted solely for the purpose of making this reference.
Overall this was an exhausting and sad experience. I don't have any strong opinions about the paranormal but I really want Lawrence's ghost to rise out of the grave and haunt the producer for what he did with this film.
1. The special effects/green screen were not very good, however, since this is a low budget production I don't want to rag on that too much.
2. The acting was... sadly bland. I really wanted to like Tom Barber-Duffy as T. E. Lawrence but there was nothing memorable about his performance.
3. The script was all over the place. There was a lot of odd details from Lawrence's life that were shoehorned into the film but didn't seem to have much to do with the actual plot. Also, the sheer amount of conspiracy theories in this movie was exhausting, as were the producer's claims that this is all fact. If so, then I'd like to see some proof, preferably proof that was not written by Richard Aldington or Matthew Eden.
4. I was annoyed by the way the film handled Lawrence's sexual orientation and love life. There were references to Dahoum (a young Arab lad Lawrence was very close with when he worked as an archaeologist before the war) but his significance was not explained. Various characters referred to Lawrence as "sadomasochistic" and "a queer". On the other hand Lawrence was shown having quite a significant amount of PDA with Florence Hardy (his friend Thomas Hardy's widow). I found that particularly odd because it's a well known fact mentioned in pretty much every biography that Lawrence was deeply uncomfortable with touch and wouldn't even shake hands with his friends, let alone kiss or hug them. Also, there is no proof that his and Florence Hardy's relationship was more than just friendship. So my question is: is the producer really THIS UNCOMFORTABLE with the idea of T. E. Lawrence possibly not being straight?
5. I was shocked by the amount of very blatant references to David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" ranging from visual references to literally naming a character William Potter and using the iconic "the trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts" line (anyone remember the match scene from Lean's film?). In fact, I think the William Potter scene was inserted solely for the purpose of making this reference.
Overall this was an exhausting and sad experience. I don't have any strong opinions about the paranormal but I really want Lawrence's ghost to rise out of the grave and haunt the producer for what he did with this film.