2K Replay: THE NEW WORLD

 by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Most Promising Performer” (Q’orianka Kilcher) at the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards. She lost to Miranda July in Me and You and Everyone We Know. That was a weird movie.

• Best Scene/Moment: Whenever Christopher Plummer is onscreen. He has a way of energizing the movie, which is why the first section (centered on the arrival and building of a colony at Jamestown) works the best.

• Best Song: “Piano Concerto No. 23” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

• Best Merch: A “The New World Rare Colin Farrell Christian Bale 2005 Calendar…” for $24.99. They really leaned into making this look like Lord of the Rings, didn’t they? The current calendar dates won’t line up with this one for a few years so you can either pretend it’s 2006 again (kind of like me with 2026 where I can finally rewatch 2006 movies for the purposes of 2K Replay) or be patient.

• Director Grade: The New World was directed by Terrence Malick.
Great Movies: Badlands, Days of Heaven
Good Movies: The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life
OK Movies: The New World, To the Wonder
Bad Movies: Knight of Cups
Unseen By Me: Voyage of Life, Song to Song, A Hidden Life
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2005 Movie: Memoirs of a Geisha

• Year 2005 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Cinderella Man, Kingdom of Heaven, The Libertine

• Never Talk to Strangers or The New World? Never Talk to Strangers

• Mall Movie? No, this is fancy theater all the way. It’s Terrence Malick, not Terrence Mall-ick.

• Only in 2005: New Line Cinema would make an epic, artsy historical drama like this. I’m guessing they were still emboldened by the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

• Scene Stealer: Christopher Plummer.

• I Miss (tie): August Schellenberg (who played Randolph in the first three Free Willy movies) and when Terrence Malick movies felt special. Nowadays, it’s 50/50 if I even watch a new one.

• I Don’t Miss: The “I love you” “No, I love you more” repetitiveness of the voiceover, which I became more aware of this time having the subtitles on which is almost a must because the characters whisper/mumble much of their monologues.

• 2005 Crush: Q’orianka Kilcher.

• 2025 Crush: Q’orianka Kilcher.

• What I Thought in 2005: I went with the theatrical cut back in 2005 and had trouble getting involved with the movie despite appreciating the cinematography, art direction, and performances.

• What I Think in 2025: This time I tried the extended cut, which I suspected would help with my previous issues back in 2005 since the movie now wouldn’t feel truncated and would have time to breathe. I was slightly right, as I enjoyed this cut more. I think the movie is best when it lets the actors non-verbal acting do the heavy lifting. The voiceover is a problem because it’s so repetitive that it makes you feel like there’s pacing issues you might not have otherwise. The performances by Colin Farrell as Captain John Smith and Q’orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas almost drag the movie into success, but ultimately this one falls short of the previous Terrence Malick movies (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line) for me.