"Knight of Cups" is the newest film by American filmmaker Terrence Malick, who is way into his 70s by now. First of all, the cast of this 120-minute movie looks excellent: Bale, Portman, Blanchett, Poots, Mueller-Stahl, Kingsley, Banderas, Pinto... you cannot ask for much more than that. However, everybody who knows Malick's other (more recent) works will know that his films are so defined in his unique style that there is rarely room for great acting. And the same is the case here. I thought this was a pretty boring watch, possibly worse than "Tree of Life" and certainly worse than "To the Wonder".
Bale is in this one pretty much in every scene from start to finish. We follow his path as he struggles with his brother, but mostly from one relationship with women to the next and it does get repetitive pretty quickly. Müller-Stahl and Portman are very forgettable. Blanchett's scenes are the film's highlight and these 10-15 minutes may have been a good short film, but for these alone it is not worth watching the entire thing. Antonio Banderas is downright embarrassing in his 5 minutes. Lubicki's cinematography is okay, but cannot make up for the weaknesses in script. Some religious moments in here as well and it all feels like a second slightly weaker "Tree of Life". I think Malick is the strongest when he has more than one lead character. Nothing wrong with Bale's performance here. I don't think another actor could have made this work. Oh and a final note about Malick's style in general. It is basically impossible to create a film, in which every scene is an emotional highlight, but that is pretty much what he attempts with the constant classical background music and of course his unique approach where you rarely see the main characters speak, but always hear them in voice-overs. The worst scene was possibly the armed robbery. It absolutely did not fit together with what we heard during this scene. Not a good film unfortunately. All in all, not recommended.
Bale is in this one pretty much in every scene from start to finish. We follow his path as he struggles with his brother, but mostly from one relationship with women to the next and it does get repetitive pretty quickly. Müller-Stahl and Portman are very forgettable. Blanchett's scenes are the film's highlight and these 10-15 minutes may have been a good short film, but for these alone it is not worth watching the entire thing. Antonio Banderas is downright embarrassing in his 5 minutes. Lubicki's cinematography is okay, but cannot make up for the weaknesses in script. Some religious moments in here as well and it all feels like a second slightly weaker "Tree of Life". I think Malick is the strongest when he has more than one lead character. Nothing wrong with Bale's performance here. I don't think another actor could have made this work. Oh and a final note about Malick's style in general. It is basically impossible to create a film, in which every scene is an emotional highlight, but that is pretty much what he attempts with the constant classical background music and of course his unique approach where you rarely see the main characters speak, but always hear them in voice-overs. The worst scene was possibly the armed robbery. It absolutely did not fit together with what we heard during this scene. Not a good film unfortunately. All in all, not recommended.