FilmSnobReviews

Title: Queen of the Desert
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson, James Franco
Runtime: 2 hrs 8 mins

What It Is: Gertrude Bell (Kidman) was a woman who defied gender expectations at the turn of the century. Her efforts in the modern day area known as the Middle East helped to establish this area as the Ottoman Empire was being split apart at the outset of World War I. After a tragedy changes her focus it’s off to the desert with T.E. Lawrence (Pattinson) to become it’s Queen. Through salt deposits and the driest parts of the desert, Bell will move to make a name corralling the barrenness of the new land.

What We Think: Herzog doesn’t make ugly movies I’ll tell you that! This movie at times is just ridiculously picturesque. Here’s the biggest gripe I have, however, for all the pans and tracks the story just doesn’t deliver at the end. Its characterization of Bell is lacking in the pure feminine power of the source materials story. Pattinson gives a pretty good performance, in fact, most of the performances Herzog gets out of the piss poor writing is fantastic. Some of the best stuff are the chemistry between Kidman and Franco. It has an almost cheesy quality that for some reason seemed to work for me.

Our Grade: D+, There are some huge pacing issues in this that Herzog didn’t address when you couple that with the poor dialogue it gets very close to failing. It’s well enough performances and cinematography save it but that is the beginning and the end of it. I do not recommend this film. At least not unless you are a fan of any of the actors in it, or you wanna watch some landscape porn. That this does pretty well. Besides that, however, this is one you can skip. It is still slightly better than that piece of crap Knight of Cups, though.