The New World

10/16/2022

**_Arty, draggy historical romance_** I've seen four of Terrence Malick's movies -- "The New World" (2005) and his three previous efforts, "Badlands" (1973), "Days of Heaven" (1978) and "The Thin Red Line" (1998). He's an arty filmmaker who isn't interested in making conventional "blockbusters." His three earlier efforts are all well-done and in some ways great. For instance, his pictures are always beautiful and imaginative, but there's also an airy, leisurely quality that will turn off some viewers. My favorite, by far, is "The Thin Red Line," a flawed masterpiece about the taking of a hill during the Guadalcanal Campaign in WWII. It successfully transcended it's storyline to seek answers to life's most profound questions. I guess Malick does this in all his films to some degree, but

12/17/2024

So, The New World… where do I start? It’s visually great. The way Malick captures the connection between the tribes, nature, and the land makes it easy to get lost in the world he’s building. But the story? Yeah, it could’ve used some serious work. The first act kicks things off strong. You get this detailed look at the tribes and their initial encounters with the English colonists. There’s this whole adventurous vibe, like you’re about to watch an epic exploration story unfold. But then the movie pivots hard into the second act and starts focusing on Captain John Smith and Pocahontas. Okay, I get it, their relationship is important, but it feels like the broader story gets pushed to the side. And then halfway through that act, Captain Smith is out, and suddenly it’s all about Pocahonta

7/30/2026

**Wait for cable/DVD.** This would have been a totally awesome movie if the year was 1913, and they showed it in full color - it would have stood as the movie to beat for decades! But it's not. I saw this movie and i thought it was alright at the start, but it was hard to understand the dialouge and there was a lot of voice overs too, which didn't help too much. I don't know the real story of Pochoantas, and i guess if i did the movie would have made more sense. Anyway after watching about 1h 30m of this movie i got really bored and i started skipping a little bit ahead, and as it went on i started skipping a bit more ahead with increasing intervals until the movie was over. I compressed the last hour into about 20 minutes, and got most of the idea. But i tell you if this was a movie i