Reviews for Pocahontas

Disney tries to make up for the racisms of Peter Pan by going a touch too far in the opposite direction and making the Native Americans seem like mystical guardians of the earth. The result, imo, is just as equally as embarrassing as Peter Pan. Perhaps even more so. The animation ranges from the usual Disney magic to just a little bit weird looking. Disney hasn't lost their touch, but certain shots of Pocahontas herself give her the strange appearance of being as flat as a paper doll.

The songs I don't mind too much. I even found myself singing to some of them when the soundtrack came out. Some of the songs are actually quite fun to sing to. Other songs, however, are merely fanciful products of the shameful stale conventions Disney had fallen into during this time. Colors of the Wind, for example, while I liked at the time, I now find to be mawkish and overblown.

The usual Disney messages are larger than life in this movie and not integrated very well at all. We've gotten tired of having them hammered into our heads, Disney. Find some other way of getting them across.

And let's not talk about the sidekicks, shall we? Disney didn't make them interesting at all this time. The main characters themselves are nice, except for the villain, who's just plain uninteresting and, like the songs, is the product of Disney running out of ideas. Disney used to make really evil and interesting villains.

If it sounds like I'm slamming Pocahontas, well, I'm not, really. To its credit, Pocahontas is kind of dramatic at times, it has an unhappy ending, and it has a rather violent death in the film. But if you're looking for an animated movie that entertains and doesn't leave a weird aftertaste, you might want to watch another movie.

Pocahontas is a very ambitious movie from Disney, their first animated feature ever to be based on real life. Pocahontas was a native American princess who became an important icon for peacemakers during the wars between the natives and the settlers in Jamestown. She was actually only 12 years old at the time when the movie takes place and John Smith was over 30, which makes their rumoured love story a bit questionable. Nonetheless, she became famous for risking her own life to save Smith when the indians wanted to kill him and talking her father into more peaceful solutions with the settlers. In the movie, Pocahontas has been turned ito a gorgeous, model-like woman of about 20 years old, probably to make the love story more believable. She is a free spirit who goes "where the wind takes her", mysterious, nature-loving and politically correct, of course. John Smith is a blonde, adventurous settler from England who hasn't found his place in the world, so he keeps searching by roaming the seas, exploring new worlds. When he meets Pocahontas, everything changes.

The animation is great, as can be expected from Disney, though quite stiff compared to for example Aladdin or The Lion King. Most likely because they were going for more realistic, human-like movements, but in Mulan for example, this was carried out in a better way. There are the necessary cute sidekicks of course, Meeko the raccoon, Flit the hummingbird and Percy, a spoiled little dog. The story of course centers around Smith's and Pocahontas's relationship and their strives for peace between the tribes. Their love is believable, though the best proof of this was cut out from the final version, the touching song "If I never knew you" sung by the two before Smith was to be sentenced to death. Grandmother Willow, a talking old tree spirit adds wisdom, mystery and occasional humor to the story.

The backgrounds and art are simply beautiful, especially the steep, rocky cliffs and the misty, mysterious waterfalls and the deep, lushful forests. The colors are often brought to the extreme, especially in the "Colors of the Wind" scene which only adds to the beauty of the film. If only Disney had put more effort into making all the scenes like this, the movie would have been fabulous, despite the historical inaccuracies. The best parts of the film are always the scenes where the backgrounds, mystery, colors and the characters' emotions are especially well portrayed, such as the already mentioned "Colors of the Wind" sequence, Smith's and Pocahontas's first encounter at the waterfall and the scenes where they're comparing the differences between their cultures. The movie loses some of its touch every time the more loud/cute/funny characters are given too much space and when the mystical atmosphere disappears, leaving the characters standing out bland and boring. The music is good, though there are way too many songs. They could have done with 5 or less, now there are at least 7 or 8, including reprises. The best ones are "Colors of the wind", "Listen with your heart" and "Savages". The rest could have been left out and it wouldn't bother the pace much.

All in all, Pocahontas could have been a great movie. It had depth, seriousness and didn't have the storybook ending. But, instead of having something resolved in the ending, we're subjected to an uncertainness. Yes, Pocahontas saved the day, yes, the villainous ratcliff is defeated. Its all good. But, she must stay, because the issue of racism isn't resolved. Kind of like the story in my opinion.