[Originally Posted 13 August 2013.]
Well…at least I’m almost finished with T.M. Thoughts…this is The New World.
This film tells of the Founding of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. The plot focuses on John Smith (Colin Farrell) who is pardoned by Capt. Christopher Newport (Christopher Plummer) and is put there to lead a group of Explorers.
While exploring the New Land, they encounter the Native Americans who reside nearby. John is then captured and brought to the Native Chief. When he is about to be executed, he is then saved by Pocahontas, the two eventually start to fall in Love and the Settlers eventually decide to leave, but John doesn’t like the Idea.
Thankfully, unlike Tree of Life, the film does have a central Narrative and it does keep the focus on John & Pocahontas. Although, it still does have Quietly spoken dialogue with Nature Shots. (not as many as Tree of Life though.) Also the plot comes off as Boring especially with a Two hour & 15 minute runtime.
The Characters don’t really express much emotion, aside from maybe Boredom. John Smith is mainly Quiet throughout the film except maybe some Narrative Dialogue.
Pocahontas does develop though as she later adapts to the ways of the English Settlers and later learns to speak English, but she does come off also showing no emotion.
Later in the Third Act of the film, Christian Bale shows up as John Rolfe who starts to fall in love with Pocahontas. Althought he might be introduced near the end of the film, He gets the most Dialogue among all of the actors.
Christopher Plummer’s Character shows up only at the Beginning of the film and then he later shows up after a Battle Scene between the Settlers & the Native Americans. I couldn’t find much to talk about his character except that he exists.
(I later found out Christopher Plummer was upset that most of his scenes were cut from the film and wrote a letter to Terrence stating he wouldn’t work with him again & told him he needs to hire a Writer. I extermely agree with that.)
FINAL THOUGHTS: It’s just Boring. I couldn’t really get upset at anything during the film, Except for the length, so I could put this off as just Boring. The Characters were just there, the plot wasn’t intriguing to me and, of course, the visuals were Fantastic. So I think this about at the same level as Days of Heaven, I can’t really complain about it
