Pretentious, boring, entirely pointless rehash of the Pocahontas story

Rating: Null/10 (16 December 2006)

The New World is a movie about the first settlers in North America, their interactions with natives, and the girl who became famous as Pocahontas.
It is a movie about all of these things - but is it a story? Dreamy, slow, and artistic, it often does not present a coherent story to the viewer. Lengthy sequences of dream like silent shots with a bit of music dominate much of the film. If you have seen Thin Red Line, this film will feel very familiar. Only where Thin Red Line used its device to alienate the audience from war, this film tries to alienate us from the process of colonisation. Or rather, it tries to depict the arrival of the British in North America as a giant rape of something pure, pristine, natural and virginal. Idealized descriptions of natives as utopian, idyllic people are completely out of touch with their depiction as tribe. For instance, we are told how deception, jealousy and ownership are alien concepts to these natural people, except of course they are fiercely territorial, spy on the British and aren't nearly as noble as John Smith perceives them.
The constant narration of characters' thoughts is irritating and out of synch with the plot. Yes, it is exactly like Thin Red Line in that regard, but to be honest, it barely worked in that film, and using the same device here results in overkill: One pseudo-poetic artsy pretentious film using this trick is more than enough.
Just as Thin Red Line heavily plugged the brief appearance of George Clooney in its trailers and promotional materials, The New World resorts to a very eye catching, dramatic, action-packed DVD cover here in Britain. It tries to sell itself as dramatic, beautiful action film, which is clearly misleading. This is not an action film. What little action there is, is not original, inventive or beautifully dramatic, but bland and boring and confusing.
In terms of its acting performances, Christian Bale, Colin Farrell and Christopher Plummer all do reasonably well, without ever needing to be outstanding. The entire film rests on the shoulders of Q'Orianka Kilcher. She does her job very well. That said, the film is incredibly obsessed with her, and especially obsessed with trying to depict her as a playful, lively child of nature at first (and depressed and abandoned broken child later on). The audience is clearly supposed to fall in love with her. If there had been less voice-over of her (and everyone else's) thoughts, it might just have succeeded. But sadly, the film ends up feeling like a very shallow, teenage romance - like Romeo and Juliet on a new continent.
The New World is really only for a small niche audience. If you like your films pretentious and wannabe poetic, slightly abstract and dreamy, without much empathy for the characters and with a very shallow obsession with a pretty teenage girl, you will probably like The New World. Otherwise, you might want to give it a miss.