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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: New Line Home Video
Salesrank: 9474
Released: May 9, 2006 |
| Our Price: $3.84 |
| Used Price: $1.56 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
In this romantic epic starring Colin Farrell, Christian Bale and beautiful newcomer Q'orianka Kilcher, acclaimed filmmaker Terrence Malick brings to life the classic true tale of Pocahontas and her relationship with adventurer John Smith set during the turbulent beginnings of America.
Description of The New World:
The legend of Pocahontas and John Smith receives a luminous and essential retelling by maverick filmmaker Terrence Malick. The facts of Virginia's first white settlers, circa 1607, have been told for eons and fortified by Disney's animated films: explorer Smith (Colin Farrell) and the Native American princess (newcomer Q'orianka Kilcher) bond when the two cultures meet, a flashpoint of curiosity and war lapping interchangeably at the shores of the new continent. Malick, who took a twenty year break between his second and third films (Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line), is a master of film poetry; the film washes over you, with minimal dialogue (you see characters speak on camera for less than a quarter of the film). The rest of the words are a stream-of-consciousness narration--a technique Malick has used before but never to such degree, creating a movie you feel more than watch. The film's beauty (shot in Virginia by Emmanuel Lubezki) and production design (by Jack Fisk) seems very organic, and in fact, organic is a great label for the movie as a whole, from the dreadful conditions of early Jamestown (it makes you wonder why Englishman would want to live there) to the luminescent love story. Malick is blessed with a cast that includes Wes Studi, August Schellenberg, Christopher Plummer, and Christian Bale (who, curiously, was also in the Disney production). Fourteen-year-old Kilcher, the soul of the film, is an amazing find, and Farrell, so often tagged as the next big thing, delivers his first exceptional performance since his stunning debut in Tigerland. James Horner provides a fine score, but is overshadowed by a Mozart concerto and a recurring prelude from Wagner's Das Rheingold, a scrumptious weaving of horns fit to fuel the gentle intoxication of this film. Note: the film was initially 150 minutes, and then trimmed to 135 by Malick before the regular theatrical run. It was also the first film shot in 65mm since Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. --Doug Thomas
The New World Reviews:
A great movie, but definitely not for all movie fans 
2009-10-25 - This movie will need more than one viewing to grasp and follow the storyline, catch the dialog and the meaning behind the very few and far between spoken lines. And this is not a movie for every movie fan, or even for fans of Colin Farrell.
That said, once again I am intrigued and impressed by how good Colin Farrell is at what he does - acting/performing. As I said in a previous review of another movie, he has, for me, a truly beautiful voice and that makes listening to the narration (or poetry reading as another reviewer called it) which covers most of the movie, easy. His Irish accent, which is more prominent in this movie than some of the others I've watched, had me rewind scenes a couple of times. Having lived in America for the last eleven years, my ears are no longer as good or quick with translating Irish and Scottish accents into understandable English, so I will re-watch this movie a couple of times to get back into that translation groove.
The facial expression and actions of the characters throughout must be watched as that forms the basis of most of the storyline. Here both Colin Farrell, and the newly introduced actress, Q'orianka Kilcher, played excellently. This applies to most all the other actors in them movie. Christian Bale is still a gorgeous guy, and good actor, fitting well into the role of the English gentleman.
It is a slow movie, granted, and there were times when I wished some of the scenery shots were cut, such as the first tour up the river, but when you think about it, it is during those that a lot of story is spoken/told.
All in all I enjoyed the movie, but recommend it only to those who can sit quietly for about two and a half hours and enjoy walking through a historic tale, told slowly, and brought to life on the big screen with a lot of scenery shots, skimpy in the way of character dialog - long stretches of no dialog or narration, a story told through body language and emotion, with gestures and expressions taking the place of dialog.
It is a good quality movie, with good performances by the actors, but definitely not for everyone.
high-def, standerd-def the movie sucks 
2009-10-23 - I got the extended cut blue ray edition and other than how good nature looked and sounded on my tv, the whole movie truly put me to sleep every time I started to watch a part of it. It took me two weeks to finish the movie that how boring it was.
No wonder it was an absolute failure in the box office, and collin ferral sucked just as much as the movie.
A True Malick Picture 
2009-10-14 - First, this Blu-Ray version is a beautiful transfer, visually. It's stunning to look at. Malick is such a visual storyteller ("Thin Red Line") that you can sustain this movie on the images alone. He's not a great traditional storyteller, so the movie will drag for many people. Plus, Colin Farrell simply lacts the emotional depth, and range, to carry a film on his own -- especially one in which he's supposed to show leadership as Capt. John Smith.
Still, the movie is an experience to enjoy. I was slightly disappointed by the sound (not enough rear speaker action), but the sound was very well balanced.
Incoherent and boring
2009-09-27 - My sister and I watched this movie the other night on Comcast On Demand, and if we had anything else better to do we would have quit after the first half hour but we forced ourselves to watch the entire movie. First off, the dialog of both the characters and even more so, the narrating was mostly unintelligible. Nearly everything was said in such hushed whispers mixed with accents and mumbling, that we had to turn up the volume and play some scenes over to try to understand what was said to no avail. Three little kids that were in a couple scenes were babbling so badly we could not understand even one word and wondered if they were even speaking english, we still are not sure. Still unable to understand what was being said after watching some scenes over and over, we eventually gave up and just tryed to follow what was going on visually ignoring the incoherent speach. Even though it was supposed to be in english, subtitles would have been very helpful. Unlike most people I love long movies, when I watch the Lord of the Rings movies, I watch the extended editions and I know of no other movies that are longer, however this movie was a very boring movie, with long periods with nothing happening. Even if this had been a 90 minute movie it would have been boring, there just was not that many things happening. On the possitive side the cinematography was great, so I give it one star for that. Will never waste my time watching this one again.
Malick is in Top Form Here
2009-09-18 - I purchased the high-definition extended cut of "The New World" on Blu-Ray disc.
Others have probably described this film as visual poetry. I'd describe it as audio-visual poetry. The soundtrack meshes perfectly with the cinematography, and the quality of both is first-rate.
People will either "get" this film or they won't. If you're not awestruck by the opening sequence, set to the Prelude of Das Rheingold, then perhaps you won't enjoy the remainder of the film.
Incidentally, if you have a big-screen 1080p television and a good audio system, I recommend upgrading to a Blu-Ray player if you haven't already. The sound and picture quality of a well-mastered Blu-Ray disc (and most of them are well-mastered nowadays) are phenomenal. And the color space is larger than it is with DVD, which means that the on-screen reproduction of color is noticeably more true-to-life than is the case for DVD.
