Pocahontas

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Disney Animation were doing so well in the early 90s, but it’s safe to say they hit a huge stumbling block with Pocahontas. Not that it’s the worst film in the canon ­­- in fact, there are a few enjoyable artistic aspects - but it’s pretty close to being at the bottom of the barrel. In the same way that the Jungle Book was towards the bottom of the top, Pocahontas is at the higher end of Disney’s worst films.

Of course, the real history behind Pocahontas hangs over the entire film like a black cloud, which makes for extremely uncomfortable viewing right off the bat. The glossing over of deeply horrific history in this film is absolutely awful, outside of the lack of artistic merit I am about to comment on.

The plot that they did manage to make up was actually rather boring. It’s the same old environmental story we’ve all seen a million times before and the same old Romeo and Juliet story we’ve seen a million times before, neither of which are particularly interesting once you’ve seen them done so many times. The characters and dialogue are also rather bland, which also unfortunately makes Pocahontas and John Smith’s relationship underdeveloped on the whole, meaning that the story falls even more flat. To make matters worse, this is the first time that the cute comic relief characters were useless and unfunny at best and made the whole tone too childish at worst, especially considering the slightly more mature animation and primary plot.

The two most enjoyable things about this movie are the music and the animation. They went with a more realistic style for both the backgrounds and characters and it looks really nice. In fact, a lot of the colours are stunning, especially in the signature song, Colours of the Wind. The musical numbers are also nicely done for the most part, with the aforementioned Colours of the Wind being up there with Disney’s best songs. I also rather enjoy the cartoonish villain Radcliffe, although his whole tone can be a bit at odds with the rest of the film when things get more dramatic, as it makes him seem a lot less threatening. But those truly are the only saving graces of Pocahontas.

Ratings

Good guys: They’re all pretty bland for the most part, meaning that good guys get 2/10

Bad guys: Radcliffe is a fairly entertaining villain, so the bad guys get 6/10

Animation: The film looks really beautiful, so the animation gets 8/10

Music: With some great songs and a really nice score, the music gets 7/10

Plot: Aforementioned glossing over of history and a dull storyline overall mean that the plot gets 2/10

Overall ranking: 25/50

Next review: The Hunchback of Notre Dame