Great if you like watching stock footage for two hours

Rating: 5/10 (8 February 2006)

While I am a fan of movies that try to be more "art house" and experimental in their film-making, I acknowledge when a film as such has fallen flat on its face. "The New World" was probably the most mind-numbing two hours I've spent since high school when I had an Al Gore-like biology teacher. The film basically strung together a lot of pictures of running water, green grass blowing in the wind, Native Americans making hand gestures, and colonists dying of disease and living in squalor.
The script for this movie must've only been about 20 pages, since there was only about 10 minutes throughout the whole movie in which anyone at all was speaking, interspersed throughout. I was waiting, begging, PLEADING for some semblance of a plot to arise from this drudgery of pretty pictures. This movie seemed like it didn't even try to engage the audience and make them care about what was happening. I might've been better served by reading a history book on Jamestown than by watching this movie; I think I would've cared more for the people and events.
Unless you're a historian or are taking some sort of psychedelic drug, this movie is great for taking naps in movie theaters. If you don't want to do any of that, go see something else. Goodnight.