The New World

The story of Capt. John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q’Orianka Kilcher), as filtered through the eccentric, intensely personal sensibility of writer-director Terrence Malick. One thing you have to give Malick credit for: He certainly marches to a different drummer, even if it’s one that only he can hear, and he never meets an audience even halfway. Those who consider him a master will no doubt find this another one of his masterpieces. The rest of us (and we are legion) will find all of Malick’s customary quirks and mannerisms—the disdain for conventional narrative structure, the beautifully photographed but utterly static images, the arrhythmic editing, the disjointed dialogue whispered or bellowed more or less at random and the haiku-like voiceover narration—as monotonous and aggravating as ever.