Pocahontas Musical Masterpiece [DVD]

The lowest point in Disney's opportunistic revisionism of source stories for its animated features in the 1990s, Pocahontas presents the title character (voiced by Irene Bedard) as a voluptuous Indian babe who falls for the British plunderer Captain John Smith (Mel Gibson). Half-baked if trendy paganism abounds in the film's depiction of nature as possessing consciousness (though talking trees certainly aren't new to cartoons). But the dubious legitimacy of the film's premise and characterisations calls everything into question. The songs by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz--while Oscar-winning--fall short of the standard Menken achieved in superior Disney predecessors including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. --Tom Keogh