Whenever I see this film it's always better than I'd remembered.

Rating: 8/10 (14 October 1999)

So why don't I have a better memory? I think it's because the flaws in `Pocahontas' are of the kind most likely to be noticed by lovers of fine animation like myself. The following paragraph will read like nit-picking, but I must write it and get it out of the way.
The canoes, the GARISHLY coloured bark on Mother Willow - almost all of the computer-generated bits and pieces just look ugly and ill at ease in this hand-drawn world. Just because we CAN use 3-D software, doesn't mean we MUST ... And Disney's fabled character animation is a bit of a let-down, too. The general character mould is meant to evoke a kind of cheap wood-cut, which is fine, but the style doesn't appear to lend itself to fluid or convincing or appealing movement. The English crew have little personality, and the Native Americans might as well have been carved as drawn.
This does NOT apply to Pocahontas herself. (Who is, incidentally, a gorgeous babe. This is not important. I just thought I'd mention it.) During the scene in which she and John Smith first meet face-to-face we're as mesmerised as they are: it looks as if they're just standing still; but, of course, if they WERE just standing still, it wouldn't work at all. THAT'S animation for ya. Meeko, the comic relief raccoon, is another triumph. I've always thought Disney's animals to be far funnier than, say, Warner Brothers', largely because the animators are expressing the animal's character with the drawings rather than pasting gags on top of the character: were I to argue this case at length, Meeko would be one of my star exhibits.
My only real complaint about the story is that we're rushed through it a bit too quickly. Twenty more minutes - fifteen - could have made all the difference. When will the day come when animated films aren't all the same length? But it's moving enough even so. If animation still lives in a children's ghetto, we should blame not the creators - who lavish more imagination and feeling on their work than is ever lavished on stuff like `Ten Things I Hate About You', to far less critical reward - but the audience.