Too straight-forward to leave any lasting impact

Rating: 6/10 (3 February 2015)

Disney hit a rut in the late-90s with a string of critical and audience failures that began with Pocahontas and lasted through Hunchback, Hercules, Dinosaur etc. It was also one of two historically- inaccurate movies starring "Mad" Mel Gibson that came out in Fall 1995 in the UK. Both of which I never got to see until much later.
From a technical standpoint there is nothing wrong with Pocahontas, as a matter of fact it's far more colorful, atmospheric, and grown-up than The Lion King, which came out a year before. But in the process it lost much of its younger audience and now only seems to appeal to adults. The story lets everything else down. It's so bland and generic when it could have had the moxie to go much further and be just a tad more complex. It certainly had the visual energy to back it up even it were to try and fail. Alan Menken's score is also horrible and totally inappropriate to the scenes he is supposedly enhancing. Songs come and go, some last only a few moments. If feels like instead of letting the visuals speak for themselves Disney decided that characters talking to each other (at the audience) as a means of delivering exposition was too obvious so instead this dialogue is sung. The songs are exposition. Rarely do they allow any visual storytelling to stand alone. John Smith's first encounter with Pocahontas at the waterfall being the best example of what the film could have been if only.
Despite being historically-inaccurate (why is she not topless?) it really only details the first half of the Pocahontas story. The second (and more tragic) half is (sorta) detailed in the cash- grab sequel that nobody remembers. I cannot imagine anyone being smitten by this film unless they are already familiar with Pocahontas as the stripped-down story is hardly likely to win over anyone new to this slice of romantic history.