De Ja Vu

Rating: 4/10 (10 May 2006)

Terrance Malick does it again, literally!! Don't worry, there are no spoilers. Of all the comments people will read about this New World movie, there will only be one that deviates from praising his gimmicks. Don't get me wrong, as a viewer I am a backseat cinematographer at heart, and also strongly believe that films like the latest of Terrance Malick's are what vividly define the line between simple flick and sultry film. BUT!! and there is a but -you can believe it- New World simply ceases to satisfy, mainly because I have seen this before, somewhere, in THIN RED LINE!!!! Thats not even what tops the cake: There is one scene amongst his many other semi-montage-like scenes that are accompanied with semi-monologue narratives -this gimmick sounds complicated, but flows well on screen- in one specific scene, the Pocahontas character asks the forest, referring to it as the great father, who he is, and to show his face. Not surprisingly, in THIN RED LINE, so does Jim Caviezel. This reminds me of the good old days in high-school, where my specialty in passing classes was to recycle good lines and ideas into other papers in order to get the same academic result, a B+. Amateur stuff -although this may have been an intentional move on the director's part, for maybe eluding to his trademark themes of nature and religion within all of his latest two movies after Malick's return from filmmaker exile- I can understand the artistic attempt at cross-overs and such, but this is simply my point, the movie deserves the B+, mainly because it was already done, by the same person that did it before nonetheless. And in that sense C-. I am really disappointed in the collective and almost cohesively associated comments about this movie. Clearly, none of you knew who this guy was before watching the movie, while others who have more clearly see that line that separates the lovers of cinema -and believe me, I love a lot- from the average movie watcher. For those that have been blown away by this movie, go see Thin Red Line, and get blown up. Oh yeah, and boo to Colin Farrel. He's a chump.