15 Movies That Thought They Were Smart But Totally Weren't

You knew this was coming. Terrence Malick is a talented director but on this occasion he just got carried away.

A film so self-indulgent and pretentious it feels like a spoof of art-house films, The Tree of Life can be divided into four parts.

The bulk of the film is a family drama set in 1950s America in which a boy (Hunter McCracken) deals with life under a harsh father (Brad Pitt) and experiences the loss of innocence. This segment is better but still suffers from glacial pacing and has too many voice-overs.

The second is a ridiculous and bizarre creation montage featuring stars, planets, asteroids, micro-organisms, sharks and, I s**t you not, CGI dinosaurs. What?!

The third is Sean Penn (the adult version of the kid from the 1950s section) wandering around office buildings and mumbling, as well as having some odd visions; these visions make up the fourth part of the film. This part is... something? It is impossible to know what the actual hell those concluding parts of the movie meant and therein lies the problem with The Tree of Life.

It's all too generalised and abstract to be meaningful and it's impossible to work out what it's trying to say. It's visually magnificent and very well-acted, but as an exploration of big themes it never connects and as a viewing experience, it'll only work as a cure for insomnia.