Yar, you be here: Dances with Wolves (Special Extended Edition) > Customer Reviews

Dances with Wolves (Special Extended Edition) Customer Reviews (16 - 18 of 64 Reviews)

My Life on the Plains
I was debating an excellent vs. a very good rating for "Dances With Wolves". I settled for excellent because my objections probably pale (no pun intended) in comparison to the accomplished movie Kevin Costner has put together. It is an epic film that tells the tale of the Plains Indians a few short years before the Battle of the Little Big Horn. It intends for us to get a sense of the life and times of that era and I felt that objective was stunningly achieved. Indeed, short of a documentary, this movie does as well in that area as any other movie I've seen. You might say that Costner was content not to let the plot get in the way of the story. On that basis alone, this is an excellent movie.

My qualms with the movie are two-fold and, unfortunately, they have to do with racial matters. First, the White people in "Dances With Wolves" generally come across as stupid, bigoted jerks. I am more than ready to concede that this was probably true of a lot of people Costner meant to portray. However, starting with the officer who assigned Costner to his post, I think the characterization is way over-done at times. A better director could get the point across without having some officer wet his pants. More profound to me was my second objection about "Dances with Wolves". I was bothered that the solitary male that Costner portrayed could only develop a relationship with another of his own race. Was Costner afraid to take that step or did it not occur to him that he might have just as easily fallen for a Sioux maiden as a White woman captured years before? I saw this movie in the theater with my wife, a Native American, and, while times are certainly different now than then, it struck us both that the director was reaching a bit too far. Probably a minor point to many but I still wrangle over it.

"Dances with Wolves" was a big hit and justifiably so. If you haven't seen it, set aside several hours on a quiet evening to enjoy it. It starts out rather odd but it won't be long before you begin to see what made it an excellent movie.

A Welcome Revival of the Classic Western
Kevin Costner took a big risk directing and starring in this 1990 movie. It had been a good 15 years since anyone had made a commercially successful Western, and Costner was covering territory already treated in movies like "Little Big Man." But it worked. He got an Oscar for Best Director, and the movie became to first Western in 60 years to win an Oscar for Best Picture. "Dances With Wolves" didn't singlehandedly revive the Western, but it made producers less afraid to give them a try. Costner plays Lt. John Dunbar, a Civil War soldier who has a hankering to see the West. The movie focuses on his encounter with the Native peoples of the Plains. Like "Little Big Man," "Dances With Wolves" present Native American life in a positive light. Like Dustin Hoffman's Jack Crabbe, Costner's Lt. Dunbar comes to appreciate their way of life so much that he adopts it for himself. The cinematography in this film is marvelous, and it's fair to say that its highlight is the buffalo hunt. Native American actors play themselves, something that not all films have done. Rodney Grant, Wes Studi and Graham Greene in particualr stand out. While we come to appreciate the Indians, however, the whites, both soldiers and civilians, are portrayed as stereotypical buffoons reminsicent of 1970's films like "Soldier Blue." In that sense, I believe, the film is a bit unbalanced. In some ways, Dunbar's encounter with the Native peoples is reminiscent of Ronald Colman discovering Shangrila in "Lost Horizon." He's found a paradise. Still, this is a very fine film, a welcome reival of the classic Western.

MASTERPIECE
I own this Special Extended Edition two disc set and I also have
Dances With Wolves: Limited Special Edition 4 Disc Box / Leather Case,The Korean Boxset,This Movie Rocks :P

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Next Page