Plot: In 1607, English settlers led by the greedy Governor Ratcliffe, set sail for Virginia and their hopes for riches and a better life than they had in London. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the free-spirited Pocahontas dreams of a "spinning arrow" that will point her to her destiny.
Pocahontas and famed "savage tamer" John Smith immediately hit it off and begin to learn more about each other's civilization. John learns to understand what nature can offer to the English, but the greedy Ratcliffe only sees the Powhatan Tribe as savages and leads his men in an effort to wipe them out. Pocahontas and John must convince their respective peoples to talk out their issues and help each other, before their hate consumes the land and they erupt into war.
What's Bad?: We were told that this story was going to be a fantastic story telling us about our history in a historically accurate interpretation. Well, Disney can't tell the side about alleged settlers raping Native woman or about them thriving after discovering tobacco. But even then, Pocahontas saved John because she wanted him to live. Their romance was most likely a fictional retelling by John Smith upon his return to England. Also, Pocahontas was twelve.
After five successive brilliant villains added to the Disney Rogues Gallery, Ratcliffe is just another greedy bastard who wants gold. If the film went into more detail about a prejudice facing the Natives and settlers, then the film would have been interesting. Instead, we get Dances With Wolves animated, which nowadays would be called "normally colored Avatar".
The film's biggest crime is in the boring leads. While there isn't anything awful about them, but they are just so boring to listen to and watch act. Pocahontas is a textbook Disney Princess, while John Smith (who in real life was short and pudgy) is a male Adonis.
What's Good?: The animation is still fantastic. The film was awarded a $10 million budget increase when Katzenberg proclaimed this film would out gross The Lion King by a country mile. You can see this in how beautiful the film is. The colors are wonderful and the animation designs are more realistic than in The Lion King.
The songs, while not gems, are pretty good. The highlight is "Colors of the Wind", which is similar to "Circle of Life" in it's message and that makes the song better. The musical score is one of the weaker ones, despite winning the Oscar in 1995.
Overall: The film is still pretty good, despite not reaching any of it's predecessor in terms of quality of film. But it's really beautifully animated. This film also marked the end of 2D animation's domination of the animation medium. Toy Story would change the way people look at animation forever and would hamper Disney box office records for the next decade. Even Disney's retelling of the most dark and twisted of Victor Hugo's novels couldn't stop the slide. But more on that next time.
Report Card:
Hero: C
Heroine: B-
Villain: D
Side Characters: C
Songs: B
Musical Score: C+
Animation: A
Special Effects: B
Theme: B+
Story: B-
Final Grade: B-
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