While Werner Herzog‘s Queen of the Desert “doesn’t deserve outright trashing, it can’t be classed as anything other than a disappointment. Because it’s not even the sort of bad that makes Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans such a gonzo blast. The notoriously stodgy historical biopic genre looks as self-serious, surface and inert as it would from any old journeyman. Herzog clearly loves both Nicole Kidman and his subject, Middle Eastern explorer and deal-maker Gertrude Bell, to the point of allowing no blemish to show. It’s such a disappointment when you consider the wild portraits of pioneers that Herzog has given us before, that he’s so reverent here. Isn’t he the director who can locate the madness in everything he sees? Where is Bell’s madness?” — from by a 2.6.15 review by Indiewire‘s Jessica Kiang. Yes, that’s right — filed over two years ago.