A beautiful film but ultimately disappointing.

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2006)

A film by Malick is a rare event indeed. Someone who is more secretive than even Stanley Kubrick and whose films only seem to appear every other generation. This is an Epic-ish story, with big production values and scope. From the front cover of the DVD and use of two major Hollywood stars an idea occurred that this would be a "watering" down of Malick's Vision and intent or that he himself relaxed his singularly art house style of film-making. Well its not to be, if people watch this film expecting gorgeous visuals, plenty of battles and polarised good and bad characters the are only have right. The film is beautiful a testament indeed to the prowess of Malick and Emmunuel Lubezki the cinematographer. One is in no doubt who the maker of the film is and one only needs to watch the Thin Red Line to see what Mailick can do with budget, stars and genre.
Simply put I was disappointed with this film as somewhat with TRL. While Mailick can no doubt make films that are, breathtakingly beautiful, poetic and dreamlike, he leaves me wanting. Despite the long run time, there is no drama, no sense of momentum, we never know what drives these characters or what their fears and limitations are. Any exposition in the film is handled clumsily and bluntly almost like an afterthought. Malick again makes use of the same cryptic voice-over in an attempt to give the film as sense of coherence. I have praised this film for its look and sound but Malick has already remarkably demonstrated his virtuosity in previous films as well as the pacing, themes and use of voice-over. Not to mention the interminable but gorgeous shots of nature.
Farrell smoulders as a brooding Irish/Englishman. Though his role does not require him to do much else than stand around and look like he is in a state of perpetual spiritual dismay. Christopher Plummer a fine actor is badly underused. Christian Bale is also a "face" in the picture. Of all its Q'Orianka Kilcher who comes out best. With a spirited enchanting performance which is all the more remarkable in that she was fourteen when the pic was shot.
As to the handling of the material we can look at it two ways. The film can be praised I guess for not turning into a cartoon were good and bad is polarised and the film acts as one critic pointed out as a movie were the cast and crew have already read a history book. However at the same time we can call the approach timid, naÃ¯ve and uninterested. Even at times when one feels Malick is maybe being ironic or critical we are not sure because of the arch style and a withholding of any clear intent. One can also say the film resides in a dreamy inertness throughout.
Of course this may be the very reason why people prise this film. One can indeed marvel and respect the way in which Malick has be able to present the film though one feels it encountered problems in the editing (it has up to four credited editors). To be fair though, of a lot of recent movies I have seen I would welcome a chance to see this again to see if one's opinion changes. While the film is a masterpiece of vision and sound, its disappointing in its delineation of character, incident and story.