2011 - THE TREE OF LIFE, very artistic and very suspect as entertainment

This film is about the birth of the universe and one person's place in it, maybe.

Terrance Malick's The Tree of Life wants to cover it all and I mean all.  The film has an extended sequence about the creation of the universe, the earth and life itself.  You could probably cut out most of this film and have a pretty good little short about evolution although no one in Texas where Malick grew up would ever screen it.

Where the film starts to get dicey is when Malick moves to the story of a boy growing up in Waco, Texas.  A viewer is going to have to really work to see the connection between the evolution sequence and the life of the boy with the stern father and a loving mother, if there is a connection.  The film has one of those obscure endings that you could always count on in just about any art house film during the 1960's or 70's particularly the ones from Europe.

Either a very great work of art of a pretentious bore from a navel gazing filmmaker, one thing is for certain we are a very long way from Badlands, Malick's first film. 

138 minutes.