Be warned!

Rating: 1/10 (24 February 2009)

I am absolutely certain that this is the worst movie I have ever seen and I hope that I will never see anything like it again. While I do understand that art-lovers might find this movie fascinating, the average Joe will simply fall asleep during the first 30 minutes. And I consider him lucky as I stayed awake.
There are so many things that are so entirely wrong with this movie. First and foremost the teaser: It makes you believe that there's actually something happening in this movie. That it's about coming to America. That there might even be some action, a killing of Indians, etc.
Well, it's not.
I don't think that a movie needs to have action and blood, but it needs to be something more than the product of someone putting a camera on a piece of wood and collecting 2 hours of "pure nature". This movie is about characters and characters only. Not character development, no, characters. Doing their thing. Someone else wrote "most of the dialogues in this movie - which are actually monologues - are entirely consisting of minute-long close-ups of the faces of the actors and you have to imagine what they are thinking". Well, this person deserves the Oscar of film-critics as he certainly saved some lives with this brave comment. Believe me, he is right.
The movie has some scenes where it goes dark and the next chapter in the never-ending tale is about to start. At every of these scenes, several people in the cinema got up, hoping for this movie to be over. They were actually breathing out loud like they just made it through a marathon. Well, they have been disappointed as the torture wasn't over. At some point, you just feel like giving up and want to leave the cinema. I have never walked out of a movie and I will certainly never be closer to it than I've been while watching The New World. I had been holding back to see if there is a stunning conclusion or if there would be anything at least close to likable in this movie. I have been disappointed big time.
I guess the first five minutes, when no one's talking in the movie, have been put in on purpose. This way, the director wanted to give you a heads-up on the things to come. Don't be a fool, listen to your gut feeling and stop watching if you've really made it past the first 3 minutes...