Lmao at people probably spending more than 2 hours and 15 minutes reading reviews. . .

I may have to check “young” Malick out!

I’ve got one guy trying to tell me that I have no right to any opinion (since I didn’t like the film) and another reader implying that I think people are dumb for liking it (not pointing any boney fingers at anyone in particular). Something you should try to understand (although I’ll understand if you don’t) is the sheer number of films like this I see every year.

Every form of art is subjective, including film, and not everyone is going to like the same things. I enjoy horror films, a genre that many of my peers reject on principle in the same way the Oscars won’t give a scifi film Best Picture. My observation, however, is that people are reading a lot more into the imagery than what’s actually there, and that’s a bit of a cheat on the director’s part (one I’m sure he’s at least partly aware of).

Narration is an attempt to translate the thoughts of a character on a page into an audio/visual medium, and this is why screenplays exist: it doesn’t work. “Blade Runner” was the last serious attempt I saw of this, but the director was flat out told “too bad” by the studio (he got his way in the director’s cut and it worked SO much better).

Malick’s imagery is in no way original, but if you don’t see a lot of art films, you’d have no way to know this. That’s what this is: an art film masquerading as mainstream. As you can tell from the comments, it isn’t mainstream (and shame on the studio for even attempting to bill it this way), but for those who are championing it, there are so many better and more original things out there than this. My opinion is based on the collective knowledge of all the films I’ve seen in my life and the reviews I’ve written for 15 years, and I can feel it in my soul that an entirely different film was shot and likely sitting on the cutting room floor. If you had any idea how many great films have been gutted by studios who won’t release the movie the director they hired actually made, you’d understand why Indies have gotten so popular (because no one wants their work taken away from them and altered).

Malick’s work is very tired. “Thin Red Line” was “War happens.” “Tree of Life” was “Life happens.” Sure, there are people performing, but there’s water, celestial events, dinosaurs, beaches, and moms floating in the yard. In my opinion, it’s trite and uncompelling. By contrast, “Melancholia” was far superior, but because that film’s message was “You die and that’s it” instead of “Look! You get it ALL back: your friends, family, lost single socks, and missing sunglasses!” it got glossed over in spite of being equally (if not even more) beautiful.