New World, The MPAA Rating: PG-13 Entertainment: +2 Content: -1 1/2

Director Terrence Malick gives his own interpretation of the classic tale of Pocahontas and her relationships with adventurer John Smith and aristocrat John Rolfe. The epic adventure/love story is set amid the encounter of European and Native American cultures during the founding of the Jamestown Settlement in 1607. It reveals the tenderness of the Native American maiden who saved John Smith from being killed by her father. Her journey of love lost and found takes her from the untouched beauty of the Virginia wilderness to the upper crust of English society during the dawning of a new America.

Malick (Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line) is as much a painter of pictures as a teller of stories. Indeed, in New World you will be far more seduced by the essence of his portraits than by the films narrative, which plods along, aided by Colin Farrells one expression, a grimace that serves to emote moodiness, philosophical quandaries and romantic glee.

Make no mistake, there are moments that reflect filmmaking genius and the Native American can be proud of their portrayal, but just as one can only eat so much steak at one sitting, we can only take so much etherealness. At 150 minutes, scene after scene and visual after visual go on and on. Its just toooo long.

Preview Reviewer: Phil Boatwright
Distributor: New Line Cinema