Even bored (and sometimes shocked) a historian.

Rating: 3/10 (1 April 2011)

As a grad student specializing in colonial America, I was quite a bit surprised catching myself just about to fast forward through this movie (I bought it on Blu Ray even before having ever watched it). The extended version has 30 extra minutes, and yet the movie is at least an hour too long. Let's cut to the chase on what I loved:
The architecture of Jamestown was amazing and the director's use of 360 degree shots is wonderful; these, coupled with breathtaking shots of nature that rivals those of top documentaries, I couldn't help wanting to keep watching the movie for more. You could really feel as if you were there.
The problem is, that is ALL I had to keep me going. I won't dwell on the editing and storytelling, considering other reviewers covered this problem perfectly. However I might add I had to raise the volume a lot or even put on subtitles to understand what the characters were saying half the time. I have never seen a movie so obsessed with whispering. It's always psss pss pss here and mumble mumble there. Also, the fading in and out of the conversations for no reason was truly annoying. I never knew whether I was supposed to pay attention to what so or so was saying or not. Throughout the movie there is no clear indication on how the audience is supposed to participate or what they should concentrate on. It's a hopeless mess of random cuts, fades, and other "artsy" styles that are overused and kill any purpose they might have had being used sparingly.
I'm not against nudity, but I do believe in purpose. What's with the random nude swimming women with no context whatsoever besides showing an underwater ass shot? And this shot is randomly flung throughout the movie as if the director is shouting, "bored? Here's some ass to wake you up!"
Back to the history aspect of the movie. (and I caution the reader I specialize rather in French colonialism, and so I can't talk about the events of Jamestown. Though I admit the movie does make me want to read up on it). Though I applaud the job made on Jamestown, the anthropology of the movie is questionable. The initial reaction of the natives upon seeing the ships for the first time angered me. The actors were told to jump around using a certain choreography which, frankly to put it bluntly, made them look like a bunch of angry monkeys looking at a far off banana. I found this view of sloping natives like a half-assed attempt to make them look primitive to the point of being cartoon cavemen. I question Pocahontas's costume which looks more like rags than actual native garment (I'd be curious to see what contemporary image they got that from). They boast in the behind the scenes documentary that they bothered planting primitive corn as it was grown back then (for people who don't know, 400 years ago corn looked more like wheat than what it is today after generations of selective gardening), and yet the main shot of the corn is Pocahontas picking modern corn... Despite the movie makers' claims of the opposite, these natives are indeed portrayed as the noble savage stereotype, in tune with nature. The reality of the matter is that natives never lived in harmony in nature. They survived in nature. There is a big difference. Other stereotypes are also present: I agree that one has to admit to the atrocities committed against natives, but showing Europeans as all being dumb brutes is still being caught up in stereotypes. And might I add captain Newport's comment (I'm paraphrasing) on not ruining America's first day sounds slightly anachronistic? And one final rant of annoyance: why does no one ever talk? I mean, sure you hear a few main characters talk, a few war whoops, but you can't ignore the fact that in the whole Jamestown settlement or the native village, background extra's walk around like a hoard of mutes told to walk straight with no purpose other than to remind us "Oh, right, there's people living here". This sticks out like a sore thumb.
Final verdict: this movie was wasted potential.