 "My Daughter Loves It." | 2008-06-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A130XACFOM8WLB |
| We had a video of Pocahontas, but needed/wanted a DVD. Since we got it in the mail she won't stop playing it. She's two yrs old and tries her best to sing along with all of the songs. Thank you for a great product. |
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 "Good enough" | 2008-05-12 |
| - Reviewed By User: A15DZMSXAAKX16 |
| I really expected more but it was good enough.Your money is really good used in it.The movie is amazing and a classic. |
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| "Great movie" | 2008-04-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2JB1V8ALZB9YU |
| I loved this movie! I know it is not historically accurate, but it is visually stunning and an unforgettable love story. |
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 "Not Historically Accurate" | 2008-03-06 |
| - Reviewed By gingerbloom80 |
I bought this movie for my daughter who is 2. My daughter likes it, but like The Little Mermaid and Cinderella she prefers.
The story is good and about following your heart, peace, and nature, but it's entirely inaccurate. The Algonquian Indians that were native to Virginia during that time placed women as the chiefs. This means that Pocahontas would have been the Queen (she was). Her father would have just been a hunter/soldier (he was). Pocahontas was the Queen of her tribe during John Smith's visit. I was very disappointed that Disney did a poor job of using sustainable historical details. I think the story would have been better if Pocahontas was the Priestess.
Also, the land that John Smith landed on was not mountainous. I'm from Virigina/DC and it's flat land from the Chesapeake Bay for some 90 miles West until you reach the Blue Ridge Mountains. |
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| "Wonderful !!!" | 2008-01-18 |
| - Reviewed By cdettlin |
| The was a great choice to purchase. My 16 year old loves it still and I purchased it for my 4 and 5 year old. A real classic. |
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 "Worse the second time around" | 2007-12-01 |
| - Reviewed By hangtown-frye |
I saw this movie in the theater when it was released in '85. I remember being mildly entertained but annoyed, despite my loose grasp of American history, at the extreme liberties taken with the realities of this true story. No, I was not expecting a documentary from Disney, but a second viewing a few days ago really brought home how non-praiseworthy this film really is.
There's a lot to like: love the "Sleeping Beauty" era animation style. Pochahontas, as a fictional construct, is gorgeous in a very exotic way, and Mel Gibson delivers a very engaging performance as a fictional John Smith. The overly (as usual) anthropomorphized animals were rendered less obnoxious by not speaking English...but then they threw in a talking tree(!). Oh, and despite the fact that I've grown weary of animated musicals, "The Colors of the Wind" is a fabulous (if tree-huggy) number with beautiful visuals.
So what's not to like? Pretty much everything else. The rest of the songs are about on par with the dreck from the Rankin-Bass "Hobbit". Remember that? Ugh. I know people defend this movie by justifying the historical inaccuracies as "art" or "minor artistic license" or whatever, but that demonstrates a deep ignorance that testifies to the shameful state of public education. Another reviewer here used the illustration, by way of comparison, of a supposed film about Anne Frank where she might run off and marry a German soldier. That example carries the right weight, imo. Pochahontas was a little girl when the Jamestown colonists arrived! She was not a statuesque teenager! She may have had some kind of illicit relationship with John Smith later on, but she married somebody else. She was passed around like a novelty back in England and died there. This is not really Disney material, folks.
This goes beyond "artistic license" to completely re-writing the story and replacing historical characters with fantastical constructs that just distract the educated viewer from enjoying a nice little tale. When the writers of "The Patriot" (another Gibson project) played this loose and fast with history, the historical big wigs eventually pressured them to change the names from actual persons to fictional ones, because the story was no longer really about actual historical people. This one is even worse, and they really should have done the same. This is not a fairy tale, like "Little Mermaid" (which was also changed dramatically...but who cares? It's just a fable...), and there is a should be a certain amount of responsibility to see that the lives and efforts of those represented are honored.
If they just wanted to fill their lineup with a "native American" story, why not Sacajaweya? Here's a girl who was taken from her people as a child, volunteers or is sold (can't remember) to the Lewis/Clark expedition as a native guide, and ends up finding her own people along the way! Baby Pip grows up and is sponsored by the "evil white guys" to get a good education and ends up an important guide and Native advocate in the West. Lots of adventure and some seriously happy endings. Crazy wacky characters built right in, plus it's a "buddy pic".
No, we'd rather make up some tree-huggy sexual tension fantasy with bad songs. Gah. It sort of works for pre-schoolers: pretty colors, cute animals, mindless songs...but then why the romantic angle? Kids hate the "kissy" stuff. It's like they couldn't make up their mind what they wanted it to be, so the whole thing is kind of half-baked.
It could be worse, I guess. |
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| "Overlooked Disney gem" | 2007-11-07 |
| - Reviewed By guitarchick24 |
Even if it's historically inaccurate, it's still an enjoyable movie.
That being said, there's few things wrong with this special 10th anniversary edition. For a really good price (about $15) you get a ton of special features which weren't present in older releases. And it's still a great film, with great music and a good, solid storyline. And if it gets kids interested in American history, that's a bonus!
The only reason I'm not giving it five stars is for the absolutely horrible added scene between John Smith and Pocahontas. (I still haven't figured out how to get the original version to play on my DVD player, and so it automatically goes right to the 10th Anniversary Edition). The song, "If I Never Knew You" is absolutely gorgeous (see the original soundtrack for a good version), and Judy Kuhn (the singing voice for Pocahontas) has a wonderful voice. But when she's paired up with Mel Gibson for their version of "If I Never Knew You," it's just awful. I think the concept behind the scene is great, but it doesn't seem to add much to the plot - which is probably why it wasn't included in the original theatrical version. And Mel Gibson can't sing. That's what ruins the scene for me more than anything, especially since you can tell Judy Kuhn is holding back vocally to match Gibson's lackluster vocals. Since she shines on all the other songs in the movie, she would probably have overpowered Gibson on the duet.
So buy this DVD because it's a great movie at a great price, but then do yourself a favor and watch only the original version! |
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| "Disney could have done a much better job." | 2007-09-18 |
| - Reviewed By nononotnevernonotnevernomore |
I actually wanted to give this one star, but my sentimental attachment to all things Disney forced me to throw in a bonus point.
I know it's for kids. I know it's for entertainment's sake. But....
There is so much that is of value in the truth. I don't know why the actual story had to be turned into this PC mish-mash. Disney's adult fans will not be amused. If it's for the kid's sake, please just rent it or borrow it from the library. And, while you're at the library, be sure to pick up some of the wonderful books for kids and teens that tell the facts in just as exciting a manner.
If you really want to excite your children about history, take them to Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg, where history really does come to life! |
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| "Pocahontas (10th Anniversary Edition)" | 2007-09-16 |
| - Reviewed By User: A266A3PND9SXJG |
| I was very happy to find Pocahontas (10th Anniversary edition) and at such a good price. My Grandaughter was so upset when our VCR "ate" our previous tape that I had found at a garage sale. I had been looking all over for a replacement and was happy to find it in the CD format. |
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| "Which is worse, the historical whitewash, or the fact that it's dead boring?" | 2007-08-28 |
| - Reviewed By newmanmonster999 |
Disney puts a pretty face on its rather ugly retooling of historical and biographical fact by laying on enough textual PC correctives to appease most of the thenthitives out there, and maybe even a few of the people who have some real reason to be offended. (And, yes, they do have reason.) This doesn't help it as a movie, though - and neither does the tiresome and mushy romance angle that slurps up a lot of the screen time. Great pains were reportedly taken with the animation, which I found to be competently uninspired by Disney standards of the period. A key color scheme associated with the character Pocahontas is an unfortunate mash of purples, pinks and golds - a color combination most recognizably associated with Barbie. This Pocahontas is, in fact, something like the genetic offspring of Barbie and a fictionalized historical figure - grown in a medium of touchy-feely new-age sentiment (emphasis on the touchy). I could probably forgive it any faults, though, if it were any good as a movie.
Really, this is material Disney should have left alone. They might have actually had a more entertaining film (albeit a more offensive one) if they had felt free to treat the story LESS respectfully. They might have also had a better movie if they had treated the material with the kind of respect it actually deserves, but is simply way beyond their ken creatively and intellectually. What we get is Disney as a bull trying hard to gingerly tippy-toe around a china shop that it has no business being in in the first place.
A similar schizophrenia plagued their ill-advised adaptation of a famous Victor Hugo novel in the same period, when the studio was evidently nurturing some loftily outsize artistic aspirations, but the result was so grotesquely perverse that it actually ended up being worth seeing - if only for the jaw-dropping 'what were they smoking at Disney' quality. (It also had some truly impressive animation.) 'Pocahantas' is not in nearly poor enough taste to provide entertainment on that level, but it's still in way too poor taste to be accepted or respected on the terms it gropes for. If nothing else, it proves that political correctness doesn't equal real sensitivity - nor does it make for interesting cinema.
Anyway, this one fails pretty miserably. Even if you can get past the inherent offensiveness of Smith and Pocahontas hooking up (according to history, if they ever did it was in what would now be considered a combination of statutory and actual rape), the execution of the romantic element here ranges from excruciatingly dull at best to... {insert puking noises}.
I don't always demand accuracy in portraying people who actually lived. I cringe when ignorant people present as history details of the Marquis de Sade's life that they could only have culled from the highly fictionalized 'Qillls.' I enjoyed that movie, though, (never saw the play) and so I was willing to forgive the fact that it was actually straight-up hogwash as both history and biography - even knowing that the facts of the man's life are actually more dramatic and interesting than than the mostly invented and over-the-top story in 'Quills,' I forgave it. It was an engaging two hours with some fun performances, so I let it go. And when people who have been exposed to it prove repeatedly that they are depressingly given to accepting what they see in a movie as fact if they don't actually know any better, I don't blame the movie, I blame THEM.
My recent experience with the dreadful 'Lonely Hearts' was another story, however. The transformation of lonely, insecure and famously obese serial killer Martha Beck into a sexually confident femme fatale hottie played by Salma Hayek felt like a gross betrayal. Not that a creep like Beck (or Sade, for that matter) deserves anyone's reverence - but the changes were typical Hollywood, they made her less interesting and more banal, and, as a character, she no longer made any sense. (Hayek's man-jumping vamp is clearly NOT the type that would need to look in the lonely hearts pages for a mate - but her presence does allow for loads of photogenic sex scenes that pass for character development. My brother has said, by the way, that he "would DO Pocahontas," but I don't think they drew her that way on purpose, do you? :| ) Making that character conform to a Hollywood standard (stereotype) was symptomatic of the film's overall slick ineptitude and gutlessness. If it had been a better movie, would I have forgiven the inaccuracies? Almost certainly - but after two excellent (non-Hollywood, natch) films that strove to interpret that character faithfully (and were all the more fascinating for it), 'Lonely Hearts' would have had to pull out some serious magic to get by with that. (I don't see it as a possibility, since that particular character interpretation was born of an imaginative bankruptcy that infected every aspect of the script.) Given the dismal situation for actresses in Hollywood who aren't built like Barbie, I would have liked to have seen some outrage over 'Lonely Hearts'' (mis)casting.
'Pocahontas' is another can of beans, entirely. As someone else put it when it came out, imagine a movie in which Anne Frank falls for, and runs off with, a German soldier. That's not overstating it by much. Let's say somebody DID make that movie. Would that be bad? Of course. What if it was actually an exciting and entertaining movie? Personally, I feel it is the responsibility of the viewer to NEVER take what they see in the movies (or on TV, or in the news, etc.) at face value - and if they do, that is a failure of the culture they live in. (F A I L U R E, people.) I have nothing but disgust for parents who use the TV and the computer as a babysitter without instilling any kind of media awareness in their kids (pointy finger: you know who you are... I hope) - but they probably know no better themselves how to evaluate what they absorb. So if the 'Anne Frank in Love' film were real, and if it were actually good, I'd probably recommend it as cinema, but it would be a heavily qualified recommendation. (See my review of 'Cannibal Holocaust' for an example of a VERY heavily qualified recommendation.) I am not the kind of jackass who feels obliged to run down Leni Riefenstahl's remarkable talent just because she made movies for Hitler. Hitler, the monster, at least had some taste to choose her. Now let's say for a moment that the 'Anne Frank in Love' movie got made, and that it's main target audience was CHILDREN...
Hmmmmm...
Well, the one star rating here isn't because I don't respect the movie's approach to history, it's because, first and foremost, THE MOVIE BLOWS... and I don't respect its approach to history, either - particularly given the target audience.
If you show this to kids (not that I can see them being engaged by it, but okay), it demands A LOT of context and explanation. (Or you can just go ahead and BE an irresponsible parent. Most evidently are these days.) |
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