Director: Terrence Malick
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 1.0
Meditative film about the (assumed) romantic relationship between John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher) and the massive time they spent in the wilderness pawing at each other while the camera examines various parts of their bodies. Trouble is, the entire movie is predicated on identifying with the relationship between the two, and that union is glaringly hollow - even factual pieces, like Pocahontas supplying the settlers with food, are pushed in the background in favor of Malick and his camera people filming every wondrous thing in sight. Not to question motives, but I couldn't help but wonder whether or not this movie really needed to be made, and to extent it is a movie instead of a short-er film blown out of proportion by Malick's ego (and threadbare screenplay) and sloppily pieced together by four different editors (Christian Bale and Kilcher's baby just ... appears, as does Bale himself - the timeline leaps forward substantially without much warning). When the movie finally arrives back in England, it doesn't seem like it knows what to do with itself, so there's some impromptu running around a garden maze (get it: love is a puzzle) and opportunities to pose for the camera (Malick to Bale: stare at the girl!). My suggestion for a drinking game: every time the characters are shown in a wheat field, take a shot. You will pass out before the movie ends.
