I’ve just about had it with this Terrence Malick character and his wierdie movies which thankfully number only four since 1973: Badlands, Days of Heaven, Thin Red Line, and now on DVD, The New World, which is the story of Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahantas (Q Orianka Kilcher (check the Q)), who was only fourteen years old when the film was shot.

Romance versus reality have never been disentangled by historians in this tale, though Smith kept a half-ass journal, no one knows how much is myth and how much truth. At King George’s court they sing … “Wild meanderings flow …” In Malick’s movie, they drip dry.

IN THE BEGINNING we’re under water swimming with the carefree Indians, (Please don’t look for the vulgar “Native American” in these pages), hearing the most pleasing soundtrack music of Wagner’s Das Reingold.

But little do they know its 1607 and English ships are about to boom into the gorgeous Virginia coastline in the area that’s now Jamestown. On the edge of the leafy woods the skins are now going bonkers. And get this: the English, led by Captain Christopher Plummer, call them “the Naturals.” The explorers have come to establish a colony and push on to seek a route to the other sea which today is populated by unnaturals.

As the crew steps on shore their first order of business is to hang Captain John Smith, who has spent the voyage clamped in the brig for some vague insubordinations. Being the only military man on the trip, he’s quickly pardoned by the super sober Cap Plummer. Smith will later again escape hanging for disagreeing with a chapter in Leviticus. I haven’t heard of this happening lately.

The explorers meet the Injuns close up and personal in a macho stare-down in a good old-fashioned long tableau which is possibly the coolest scene in the film (old boy Plummer sure can act). The Redskins, painted and tattooed to the teeth, like to touch and sniff the newcomers, and let out an ear-splitting squawk from time to time. But there’s no fighting. They go back to their idle milling about. But of course, as settlers will, they get right to work clearing every tree for miles around and build a fort.

But already the food is rotted, supplies are way low, and the men are getting sick. So Plum must return with the ship to England and bring back more of everything.

Meanwhile, Smith is chosen to go up river to find Pawatan (August Schellenberg, oy vey), the Big Chief of all Media in these parts. Of course Smitty is hornswaggled long before his destination and led blindfolded into tribesville and taken to Big Chief’s mega-hut. And immediately begins the dicey beeswax of what he can get in trade. His first playing chip is gunpowder, which only sends the warriors into a frenzy. And here one begins to notice bad filming and hideous cuts in the editing.

Next (but of course) Q-girl is begging her dad to spare Smith’s life (because he’s Colin Farrell and he’s cute). And here’s something strange: the name “Pocahontas” is never uttered in the whole film. But she’s the favorite of Pahatan’s one hundred children; she’s pensive and instinctively brilliant, and is loved like a diety. And all bow to her wherever she walks; and she learns English in a New Amsterdam minute.

So Smith is allowed to walk free in the village and play jousting games with the young braves, and as we all know from our schoolbooks, he meets and falls in love with the princess in a bucolic courtship of walking, swimming, and frolicking in the woods. And over her dad’s expressed objections, they marry themselves Injun-style away from the tribe (heap big trouble). Happiness is fleeting, but turmoil goes on forever.

Soon Smith knows he’s obligated to report back to the old fort and must go – where he finds the housekeeping has taken a nosedive. Starvation and dissension conspire to depose him as “president” post haste in a mutiny. He’s not put in prison, but is made to do chop-busting wood-splitting away from the others.

Your Indians had been expecting a short stay by the visitors, but when they learn they’re fixin’ to stay, they attack the fort asap. There’s a pretty good hand-to-hand combat sequence not filmed terribly well when compared to, say, Mann’s Last of the Mohicans. The Braves are tough mothers, and the settlers fall back to the flimsy fort and remain sequestered there. Meanwhile, Pahatan has learned of his daughter’s marriage to Smith, and she is soon banished, where the walks the meadows and woods, and in winter brings her small band of followers into the fort. So the standoff goes on. Be warned, half of this picture is watching her walk, thinking, and talking to herself in fragmentary sentences.

Suddenly a new sequence explodes on the screen as Captain Newport (Plummer) and the ship return, and the Naturals must sue for peace. Smith’s position is immediately restored and he’s told King George wants him back in England to prep for his own expedition to find a passage to the Indies.

Smith and the princess meet again, and though more tentative, they’re still in love and walk around shooting the breeze – and walk and walk and walk … while Smith knows he must leave, he keeps it to himself knowing you don’t say “no” to the King of England. So, after agonizing, he departs without saying bye-bye, leaving instructions for her to be told six months hence that he’s died at sea. She goes quietly wacko Indian-style in a daze doing weirdo Indian things. Still, she’s not abandoned, and the folks give her a house to live in and a rough-honed but cheerful lady’s maid to teach her the first steps of Jacobean lifestyle, for at this point she’s big news in England at King George’s court – being donned the “Queen of America” and is baptized “Rebecca.” But she still keeps to herself walking the village alone.

Late in the film she is pursued and married to a fine young man (Christian Bale) and at this point one is tempted to wish his and Smith’s role were reversed, as Mr. Bale is a good actor and Mr. Farrell is a very bad actor, having a repertoire of one hang-dog expression.

An offspring comes forth and the years pass as the little boy runs between his mom and pop in the fields. And one day an invitation comes that “Queen Rebecca” is to be presented to the King of England. Gouged in at this point is a shot of Sad Sack Smith somewhere in the world on a rocky rainy beach which we know is not the elusive Indies. By now “Rebecca” has learned that he didn’t die, and dutifully tells her husband that she had been “married” – which of course doesn’t make him feel exactly great. But the big trip is still a go.

The final act finds the princess stepping on England’s ground at the bustling fishy seaport, and is agog at all the sights and sounds. All the poor folk and workers know who she is, even though she’s left to walk alone in a plain ankle-length frock. She stops to look at the architecture as only she can look at something. Each person bows as she passes.

And in a flash we find her in ridiculous Jacobean formals, armor-starched with high hat, bowing before the King. The reception is key-noted by English-types of birds and animals for her to see. But, of course, in her thoughts she only identifies with the caged beasts.

She and her good husband, Bale-man, are given a humungous mansion with flawlessly manicured grounds. And by and by a sheepish John Smith comes galloping up to the front door.

The two walk the grounds and speak of what once was in the past in non-sync conversation. He was her first and only love. But he gallops off, each knowing the past was over.

The princess dies young in 1617 (a year after Shakespeare), most likely of pneumonia (thanks whities), only a little past the age of 21. Her husband and youngster are shown sailing back to America, and a collage of wild woods, babbling brooks, and tall trees (straight up, thank you) bring this languid opus to a close.

To be fair to director Malick, there’s not much to tell. But this is just the kind of piece which gives him too much time to stroke his lyric shaft.

And the award goes to casting! For coming up with unknown Q’Orianka Kilcher, whose extraordinary grace and beauty steal this movie.