I'm giving this film a much higher score than I thought I would beforehand, but let me explain. Yes, this film is wildly inaccurate historically. Even as a kid (I was 11), I knew that. I remember being all "It wasn't anything like that at all! This is bullcrap!" And that was just from the trailers and secondhand accounts from my friends. I even refused to see it on principle and didn't end up actually watching it until years later. So yes, the characters and events in this movie are nothing like their real life historical counterparts. But then, it also has a talking tree in it. The way I figure it, if you just imagine this is a completely original story instead of a bastardization of history then it suddenly becomes much easier to enjoy. If nothing else, not ripping it a new one every forty seconds or so certainly saves time.
In addition to making history teachers cry, this film had another deck stacked against it: most of the things 90s Disney movies usually had going for them don't work here. The songs are forgettable, save "Savages", which I really enjoyed (though talk about a lack of subtlety, check this action out:
"They're not like you and me, that means they must be evil!"Yeesh). Additionally, the side characters are practically non-existent. I don't remember a single character's name besides the two leads, the villain, and that one loser kid off the ship who shoots that other guy. I also know the chief's name, but from history class, not the movie. The upside to this is that the two leads do get more development time. I've heard people say that they were flat, uninteresting characters, but I disagree. I found myself invested in their struggles and their relationship, though that's purely my own personal tastes at work. And I do concede that some of their romantic dialogue was hideously sappy.
The villain was pretty one-dimensional and actually quite lame, as villains go. He wants gold, and nothing is going to deter him. There, you now understand every facet of his character. Though he does have one useful function: kicking off the one good song of the movie. Don't even get me started on the quirky animal comic relief. Kill it with fire.
How can I score a movie so high and then spend 2 and something paragraphs ripping it a new asshole? Simple: I love the message. Oh, not the message that it was trying to send (at least overtly), but the underlying one. Think about the dynamics of this movie: the natives are clearly the side of good, living in peace with nature and nervous about these new invaders in their land who do not respect it as it deserves. The English, by contrast, are the vile aggressors, driven by greed and unable to accept that any people unlike themselves could be worth anything. Of course the racism angle eventually gets played both ways, which is something else I really love (and the song is just so cool), and really goes to show how hatred and fear can infect us all. But my main point is this: had this film been made fifty years earlier, the heroes would have been on the other side of the ship. That is, it would have been exactly what the settlers in the film imagined it to be: a heroic tale of brave and adventurous pioneers setting out to a new land, defending themselves against the lawless savages who inhabit it and eventually taming and befriending them. This is how far our society has come, and for that I love this film, even if it gets a little anvilicious with its messages at times.
And I really did think John Smith and Pocahontas had chemistry. Nice to see in an animated film.
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