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Pocahontas (1995)

Director: Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg

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Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Disney's Pocahontas can't get stirred dramatically for political correctness, the finale will please nobody, and the songs are duff. That said, there are enough incidental felicities to pass the time pleasantly. A great deal of care went into the depiction of the Native Americans, in particular the gorgeous heroine, but the whites and various pet animals - Meeko the racoon, Flit the hummingbird - come from stock. Given the pompous colonialist views that John Smith has to express, it's just as well they requisitioned the endearingly jivey tones of Gibson for the hero. Pocahontas shows him that the natives live harmoniously in primitive Paradise. He takes her point and they fall in love. The British settlers only want gold, but whether they're all as villainous (Connolly voices one) as mustachioed Gov Ratcliffe and his decadent pug isn't clear. Smith is captured by Pocahontas' father, Chief Powhatan, but she saves his life by offering hers. He then stops a British bullet intended for the Chief. All this self-abnegation carries over into a Casablanca-style ending.

Author: BC

Time Out Film Guide


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