poorly written, directed and edited

Rating: 3/10 (28 January 2006)

I found this film quite disappointing on many levels. The editing was choppy and amateurish, and they could have left about 15min. of footage out because it was just actors looking at each other without dialogue. It made the 2.5 hrs seem more like 3.5. Much of the remaining dialogue was mumbled and sometimes incomprehensible. I thought Colin Farrell's acting was unimpressive - his range of emotions was quite limited. Q'Orianka Kilcher is a superb actress and I hope to see her in future movies - it is unfortunate that Native American roles are so few and far between. The flow of the story was quite fragmented without proper transitioning and they kept alternating between peace and war with the natives, but there was no explanation. At some points a couple of natives have their hands tied as prisoners and the next minute they are helping paddle the canoe. I was surprised that James Horner did the musical score- it was just a very loud new age synthesizer that by the end of the movie was almost deafening. Is that what they listened to in the 1700's?