Review: Pocahontas

British colonists and Native Americans clash when the former arrive on the latter’s land seeking gold. The colonists are led by Gov. Radcliffe (voiced by David Ogden Stiers) and the more even-keeled Capt. John Smith (voiced by Mel Gibson), who encounters Native American girl Pocahontas (voiced by Irene Bedard). She’s curious (despite a marriage with a Native boy already arranged), he’s smitten (despite her being a ‘savage’), but their two tribes are quite clearly headed for war. Billy Connolly provides the voice of Smith’s rowdy mate, and a young-ish Christian Bale is the voice of an impressionable young seaman.

 

Directed by Mike Gabriel (“The Rescuers Down Under”) & Eric Goldberg (previously an animator on “Aladdin”), this 1995 Disney film might be just about rock-bottom so far as Disney animated fare goes. I did so much eye-rolling in the first fifteen minutes alone that I was worried my eyes wouldn’t set themselves right again. It’s one of the least feminist films to feature a fully-clothed female lead, the treatment of Native Americans and their culture is patronising and insulting (despite several Native Americans in the voice cast), the animation is ugly as hell, and the songs are awful and insipid, especially the ghastly ‘Colours of the Wind, which may have the worst lyrics to a song not done by The Black Eyed Peas. Seriously, these songs have putrid lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (“Godspell”) and are poorly sung to boot (I mean, why on Earth would you ask a bobcat why he grins? Why would anyone write a song lyric about grinning bobcats? Were they dropped on their head as a kid?). They’re done in the Broadway style of the subsequent “Hunchback of Notre Dame”, but nowhere near as successful.

 

How un-feminist is it? The basic set-up with Pocahontas boils down to an arranged marriage, for cryin’ out loud…which I might add was pretty much the deal in Disney’s earlier (but better) “The Little Mermaid”. I know the story has some basis in kinda sorta fact, but the fact that Disney would give us such a clichéd and frankly outdated depiction of a young woman, especially when they’ve done the same damn thing before, is just lazy and insulting. And the way it deals with cultural differences between the white fellas and Native Americans shows that Disney animation is just not the right place for such things. The film plays the same note over and over, and over. We get it, the white man is the true savage, everyone needs to hold hands and kiss each other for world peace. Whatever, Disney. But it’s kinda hard to take this thing seriously anyway when Linda Hunt turns up to provide the voice of a talking tree. Yes, Pocahontas talks to a fucking tree. That pretty much sums up everything wrong with this film, to be honest. Kids deserve much better than this nonsense. Aside from the arranged marriage unpleasantness, the basic plot is perfectly fine, it’s just that screenwriters Carl Binder, Susannah Grant and Philip LaZebnik have botched it. Meanwhile, if Pocahontas is so ignorant and a savage, how come she speaks fluent English? That’s the thing, you have to ignore shortcuts like that in order to accept what this film gives us. Kids won’t notice it, but will they care about this colonial historical/war story? I get the feeling Disney weren’t sure, hence the shoehorning…er…inclusion of the hummingbird and raccoon characters as ‘cute furry animal comic relief’. These two may just be the worst such sidekicks of all-time, they don’t even talk! There are out-of-place, jarring, and pandering in the worst way.

 

And then there’s the animation, which may be an all-time low for Disney, yes even worse than the subsequent mediocrity “Hercules”. It’s angular, ugly, and boring, especially the Native American characters who at times look strangely flat-faced. Pocahontas in particular has only one facial expression (the biggest animation sin of all), looks like a man with her off-putting, strangely-shaped head. Disney’s attempt at making human hair look textured just makes it look cheap to me. There’s also way too many shampoo commercial spots with the Native Americans’ hair blowing in the wind and leaves also blowing in the wind for fuck knows what reason. The film incorporates some CGI in amongst the traditional hand-drawn animation, but there’s so little of it that when you see it, it’s obvious and not remotely seamless. The animation overall is seriously under par. And I swear no one involved in this film has any idea what a pug looks, sounds, or behaves like, because the one here only gets the tail right. The rest looks like a bulldog. It sounds nothing like a pug, and believe me, pugs have a very distinctive sound, not just their bark but their breathing too. This one sounds like one of those shitty little terrier things. Whoever envisioned a pug as snooty and pampered has never owned a pug. It’s inaccurate in the extreme. They are ‘people dogs’ who in particular love children, and aren’t known for being particularly prissy. Pugs have been in my family since my mother was a child, let alone me (and I’m 34), so I know what I’m talking about. Others won’t care, but it pissed me off.

 

So did I like anything about the film? The seafaring stuff was pretty enjoyable, as was the fat Captain Hook-like Gov. Radcliffe, nicely voiced by Winchester himself, David Ogden Stiers. He looks like Captain Hook has eaten the crocodile that ate him. I’m not sure Mel Gibson and Billy Connolly’s voices really match the character designs they’re assigned to, but the film would be even more boring without their enthusiastic efforts.

 

Not as useless as “Fantasia”, but worse than the lazy “Treasure Planet”, this is clearly one of the worst Disney animated films ever. Twee, patronising, and suffocatingly boring. I can’t imagine this being a childhood favourite of many.

 

Rating: D