Hubris on a Monumental Scale

Rating: 1/10 (28 May 2006)

Here we have self confidence run riot.
Malick has produced good, even great films in the past.
And it has gone to his head.
Here we see a director whose previous work has garnered almost total praise, and he believes he can do no wrong.
What has resulted then, is the most pretentious and self indulgent film of the last decade.
The dialogue is banal (quite an achievement given its paucity) The acting perfunctory, particularly Farrell's almost unintelligible performance (again, quite an achievement allowing how little he is given to say) The symbolism is obvious, leaden, repetitive, and ultimately tedious. The music, possibly Horner's worst is inappropriate and resembles little more than the orchestra tuning up to prepare to play.
But does this matter.
No thinks Malick... I am a genius... and so all is subsumed beneath his desire to SHOW us his masterpiece.
It is quite clear that if he could have got away with showing us a series of paintings he would have been much happier. this is fine if we are in a gallery, but this is not a painting, this is a film, and a film of such total self regard that it makes Barry Lyndon seem positively insecure.
Mr Malick, your movies have offered us declining returns on each occasion since Badlands. This is not the art you think it is, this is one man's monstrous ego, sycophantic praise to the point of obscenity.
Mr Malick, watch Black Robe, and learn. Perhaps then you may return to the quality e once admired.