Horrible

Rating: 1/10 (23 February 2006)

I am happy that Thomas Edison lived to invent the light bulb and the phonograph, but after the ordeal of sitting through The New World, I wonder whether the moving picture was a good idea. Terrence Malick has marked out a new world of incoherence in film-making. Not one frame of this movie makes any sense. It is so bad that you don't even have the pleasure of laughing at it. To weep over it would only be tears wasted on something Dead On Arrival. The actors--all of them--seem stunned, gob-smacked to have to utter unutterable lines. Ms Kilcher is beyond clueless. Farrell, Bale, and Plummer seem to be in a dream--no, a nightmare--from which they can't awaken. Jonathon Pryce gets off easy in his 5 seconds on screen. He has to say nothing. The depiction of the Natives is embarrassing. The music---Mozart!!-has no connection to what's going on. I rate Badlands as one of the 40 or 50 best films. This one is the worst. Is there a rating below 1? I wish.