Review of Dances with Wolves

As several viewers already have pointed out, Kevin Costner is not a great actor. He's doing all right, had the perfect looks for his time, and in Dances With Wolves he reached his peak, also as a director and producer. Even more overrated when it comes to acting and credibilty is his female opponent Mary McDonnell. Not only is she basically overacting but her appearance makes it even less credible. Why does her hairstyle have to be absolutely 1990, also even hooker-just got out of bed-and dragged thru the dirt-style? Her character is supposed to have lived with Lakotas for some two decades, and she still hasn't been told to comb and groom her hair like all the other women in the band, not even when she's getting married. It's just silly and does not go well along with the otherwise well studied original clothing and effects among the Lakota characters. This is a big turn down about the film as a total. The plot is very much a Hollywood cliché, with good fighting evil, and as always the Pawnees are the bad indians. What was genuin and new in 1990, at least in such a big production, was that the audience got quite a good Insight into native culture and even more important, that they spoke their own language. Most of all it's the same old love story, with Euro-American hero saves and falls for captured Euro-American heroine. Nothing New, but told in an entertaining fashion and with brilliant cinematography.