65 out of 77 people found the following review helpful:

Delirious journey into the unknown

shivananda from Midlothian, 8th June, 2006

This movie is like no other I have seen for a long time.

Mesmerizing, dreamy, terrifying and silent all at once. The director tries to re-create how the new world might have felt before it became "America", doing away with most preconceptions of the early settlement history.

For most of the time, this means feeling overwhelmed by the sensual beauty and strangeness of the new place. There are many moments when the action goes into one direction, but the camera goes into another: for example, a fighting scene cut through with images of decaying wood.

It's all like a stream of consciousness that is often interrupted, giving a sense of disorientation, as if one was watching it in a delirious state.

Throughout, the movie reflects on language, speaking in strange tongues, and naming – among other things by refusing to speak the name "Pocahontas" even once, as any other less imaginative movie would have done.

An unforgettable movie.

Read all highest rated reviews

40 out of 46 people found the following review helpful:

Rapturous Cinema

GreenwichPaul from , 4th July, 2006

Malick's 4th film is a slow-paced but breathtakingly beautiful piece about early European settlers in America. As with his other films; script and story development are secondary to his creation of film as a sensual experience where image and sound are everything -to the point where they become almost overwhelmingly beautiful.

Once again he takes great human drama and sets it against the beautiful chaos of nature; humanity becomes a part of nature in Malick's cinema.

Filled with symbolism and breathtaking imagery the film is a ravishing treat which builds hypnotically to a quiet but profound and almost spiritual ending.

Extremely satisfying, if not for all tastes, this is the director's 4th film and 4th masterpiece.

Read all highest rated reviews

31 out of 34 people found the following review helpful:

Hugely disappointing (nice cinematography, though)

TristanWhite from , 9th July, 2006

I was very disappointed by this film - a shame as I had been looking forward to it for some time. The story is closely based on Captain Smith's own account of what happened in Jamestown (the first English settlement in America). Yet if you didn't know a little about Captain Smith, you wouldn't even realise that the girl is meant to be Pocahontas (her name is never mentioned), and it's only thanks to my limited knowledge of the real stoy that I know that Christian Bale (the best actor in the film by a mile) is meant to be John Rolfe. But that is a minor matter. What jars with this is the ridiculous over-long beginning - takes forever to get going - and the holes in the plot. Originally this film was 20 minutes longer (believe it or not) - the director pulled the film a few days after release to re-edit it. Well, he did a bad job. Firstly, he could have edited a lot more. Secondly, the film jumps around in a very poor fashion, which is very annoying for the spectator. Then there's the ridiculous interior monologues (mainly by Colin Farrell as Captain Smith and Q'orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas/Rebecca - played by a 14-year old actress although in real life she was meant to be about 10 years old), which are so hammy and OTT that they should have ended up on the cutting floor. Furthermore, Colin Farrell should have given up his career as an explorer - he was never much good at it, as he often lost the trust of his men - and concentrated instead on Teaching English as a Foreign accent: in a few days (weeks? months?) Pocahontas begins to speak perfect English (and bizarrely, with not a trace of Oirish - strange that, since Colin's twang is all that she has heard). She is soon waxing lyrical about her mother, talking grammatically perfect English (even gets her 'who' and 'whom' right). The whole thing is utterly ludicrous. Then there's the ridiculous storyline. Yes, we know that the area they decided to build their colony on was not the most hospitable, but since at the film's beginning they find oysters and loads of fish, quite why they are starving to death and eating one another's hands and leather belts after a few months defies logic. Why could they not hunt for food? It was ridiculous. Then there's the ending - which I shan't spoil, but suffice it to say it's the most ridiculous ending I've seen in a long time. A complete waste of over two hours. Thank God it wasn't the 150 minute version...

Read all highest rated reviews

33 out of 53 people found the following review helpful:

Terrence Malick's Counterpart To The Thin Red Line, It's Beautiful, Visually Stunning, & Poetic

A Customer from high wycombe, england, 6th February, 2006

I went to go see this film at the movie theater and to anyone who wants to see it, see this movie there. The TV screen cannot caapture the beautiful cinematography and scope that the theater does. This movie was very good and a surprising second half brought me even more feelings toward this movie. The camera work in this movie is simply amazing in the new world and England locations and the score cannot be challenged because of its amazing composer James Horner(Titanic,Jumanji) who brings the charectors emotions thru on a even higher level than acting. Yes I was squirming in my seat a little bit but I could not tear my eyes away from the screen. The acting is amazing in this movie by both Colin Farrell and Christian Bale and the newcomer who plays Rebecca(I cant spell her name).This movie should definetly win best cinematography in the Acadamy Awards because it is so beautiful the way they shot this movie. Beware: this movie is a romance movie with a couple action sequences so don't go in looking for a action packed film, go in looking for a great, magnifecent peice of art(although I would want to see more action).

Read all highest rated reviews

Beautiful, but with nothing else to offer

DougW from , 12th March, 2010

A friend of mine has a theory that ugly people are often a lot more interesting than beautiful people, simply because they have to make more effort to get people to take interest in them. I think that theory extends to this film: it's stunningly beautiful, but just painful to watch. There was no sense of building character or plot; events just happened, slowly, and not even in an organic way. The film got so slow that I pressed scan and watched it all in fast forward. I still understood everything that was happening. That simply shouldn't be possible of a good film. It really was like watching paint dry, albeit that it was a Van Gogh rather than a fence. If you want to see something beautiful, go to a gallery instead.

Read all recent reviews

The New World

A Customer from Wirral, 25th February, 2010

An utterly boring film that I kept kept hoping would liven up. The only good thing in its favour were the closing credits!

Read all recent reviews

Fascinating

mosul from from london, 30th January, 2010

I enjoyed this film. This is the first time I have encountered the story of Pocahantus(?), other than knowing she was a native american girl. I thought the film was a really good insight into the motivations of both the europeans and the native americans. the culture clash and the attraction of the exotic are well dealt with and form the basis of the story. It resists the temptation to linger on the violence that occurs and lets the (hi)story do the talking. As such it will not appeal to the majority, it requires the audience to think 'what would i do?' and maybe not like the answer!

Read all recent reviews

very slow, it was more a documentary than a film that was entertaining...

A Customer from Exeter, England, 27th January, 2010

in one respect it was well acted and had all the right ingredients for a great film but it lacked direction... it just dragged there was a story line but it felt like it took an age to be told... disappointing!

Read all recent reviews