The New World

Cult director Terrence Malick's (Badlands, Days of Heaven) epic about the first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607—and the romance between settler John Smith and Indian maiden Pocahontas that purportedly insured its survival—is neither a staid, didactic pageant nor a Disney-fied retelling. Unfortunately, The New World is pretty much a mess—a woozy, sometimes inspired but mostly infuriating film that seems far more interested in conveying mood than telling a story. Of course, no one familiar with Malick's idiosyncratic style would expect a conventional narrative that lays out the material like a high-school textbook, but the clash of cultures represented by the English encounter with the Powhatan tribe is presented here in an atmospheric, almost hallucinatory fashion (as in reels worth of swooning outdoor footage featuring characters stumbling about, aimless and uncomprehending, with Colin Farrell's Smith mumbling incoherently about the promise of a liberated life). Unfortunately, we're not told what's happening or why, and individual sequences are linked in the most perfunctory manner, so that even while there are moments of real visual poetry in The New World, most viewers will likely find it to be an impenetrable bore. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 59-minute “making-of” documentary and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a very disappointing film.] (F. Swietek)[DVD Review—Oct. 28, 2008—New Line, 172 min., not rated, $20.98—Making its second appearance on DVD, 2005's The New World (Extended Cut) sports a great transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. This new version adds 30 more minutes, but features no other extras aside from a bonus digital copy of the film. Bottom line: fans of the film will appreciate the extra half-hour of material, while detractors likely will not.][Blu-ray/DVD Review—July 12, 2016—Criterion, 172 min., in English & Algonquin w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $39.95, Blu-ray: $49.95—Making its latest appearance on DVD and Blu-ray, 2005's The New World features a great transfer and a DTS-HD 5.1 soundtrack on the Blu-ray release. Presenting the first cut, theatrical version, and extended edition of the film, extras include a “making-of” documentary (59 min.), production segments on “Editors” (41 min.), “Production” (37 min.), “Actors” (30 min.), and “The Versions” (18 min.), trailers, and a booklet (featuring an essay by film scholar Tom Gunning, a 2006 interview with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezski from American Cinematographer, and production materials). Bottom line: this is the definitive edition of a Malick film that is characteristically lovely to look at but also seriously split critics.]