With moments of greatness...

Rating: Null/10 (31 May 2011)

The new World is the 4th Malick film I have seen, and just like always, it is visually-great, but yet not as much as The Thin Red Line and Days of Heaven especially. Malick does know how to show romance, as the romance between Pocahontas and both of her guys is very well constructed and edited. Scenes like this give the film a real power. Also, it is not as incoherent or as overwhelming as The Thin Red Line (but then again I saw the shortest version, the 135 minute version).
Like always, there is some ambition beneath the surface, but at this point nothing here feels that original. Yes, the romance is well-made, perhaps the most affecting romance in a Malick film. Also, Q'orianka Kilcher manages to be the stand-out among big stars like Christian Bale and Colin Farrell. She barely speaks a word, but her effect is there. The film is highly flawed though, and in a way it is not better than The Thin Red Line. It is more consistent, but none of it hit me as hard as the big war scenes in The Thin Red Line or the flashbacks to the wife.
Ultimately, I do recommend it, but it stands together with The Thin Red Line (whose rating dropped to a 7 by now) as good films, ambitious and visually great, but neither have a real lasting power that his earlier films Days of Heaven and Badlands have.