Another pretentious, self-indulgent philosophical work from Terrence Malick, whose schtick is getting old real fast. The whole movie feels like a long boner pill commercial, with the characters just silently walking around, looking pretty, and thinking out loud in poetic mumbo-jumbo, masquerading as high art. Malick started going in this abstract direction halfway through the Tree of Life, thoroughly in To the Wonder, and here he pretty much kills the whole art form to the point of driving the audience to mental exhaustion. Christian Bale is way too talented an actor to be walking around - albeit while bedding the most beautiful women on the planet, but still - all the while looking internally tormented with personal family issues, as his brother and father have some skeletons in the closet themselves, and yet he hardly has a line of dialogue/monologue in the entire 118 minutes. For the life of me I could not understand what Malick is trying to say with this film (and I consider myself an art house movie snob - go figure!), as it feels like a continuation of his last movie, and that's not saying much. I can't see this movie being a financial success in the least, which is probably a good thing, since he will (probably, or at least I hope) stop making his college philosophy theses into celluloid and might hopefully try to make something a bit more mainstream next time around, because he's clearly lost his audience. Being a good filmmaker does not mean making movies that only you as a director can understand; Malick - and the once-upon-a-time auteur Paul Thomas Anderson - have clearly lost touch with reality as of late, and whereas their movie releases were a cause for celebration once upon a time, today they are just exercises we must endure. Such a shame it is indeed.
D+
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