Scary new world

The scenery in The New World is very pretty. The trees are pretty, the water is pretty, the sun is pretty. Point being, love is as beautiful as the landscape. Now that that is settled in the first 15 minutes, let the characters do something. But the thing about this movie is that nothing actually happens. John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher) stare longingly at each other, or after each other, as they walk together in the grass, or walk away from each other in the grass. Then there's a shot of the water or a bird or a tree. There is little dialogue -- almost everything is done through excessively yearning voiceovers -- and what is said is hardly easy to hear, what with all the lushly loud music and historically accurate accents, which apparently means mumbling what few lines an actor has. As a result, the audience is often left wondering what exactly is happening and whether the scene is taking place in a dream or in the present or in the past and oh look, they're staring at each other again and there's another shot of the river. The New World is all mood and emotion, but even if the actors are saying everything with a look, they're not saying nearly enough.