Last of the Mohicans (Dts) (1992)

New York Times
"...Handsome, swashbuckling, peculiarly prescient....[Day-Lewis's] fierce and graceful body language speaks much louder than words..." 09/25/1992 p.C3

Entertainment Weekly
"...[Mann's] best movie....A pleasant reminder that you don't need coherence when you've got iconic stars like [Day-Lewis and Stowe]..." -- Rating: A- 06/21/1996 pp.72-3

Los Angeles Times
"...Undeniably exciting....Filled from the opening shot with spectacular natural vistas..." 09/25/1992 p.F1

Chicago Sun-Times
"...There are just enough historical and political details....Entertaining..." 09/25/1992 p.43

USA Today
"...One of the decade's best action extravaganzas..." 11/26/1999 p.8E

Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide 7 of 10
Rousing, kinetic update of the James Fenimore Cooper classic, replete with 1990s sensibilities, potent depiction of violence, and a charismatic central performance by [Daniel] Day-Lewis as Hawkeye. Wavers between sweep of historical fiction and smaller canvas of its love story, but never fails to entertain. - Leonard Maltin
 
Washington Post 8 of 10
The Last of the Mohicans, a rapturous revision of the schoolroom classic, follows the trail blazed by Dances With Wolves and more recently Unforgiven. A rousing frontier saga drawn from James Fenimore Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales, it looks back with longing on the savage Eden of 18th-century America, a lush old-growth wilderness from which mountains rise like sleeping giants wreathed in cloud. Painstakingly, breathtakingly re-created by director Michael Mann, this landscape makes room for heroes with principles greater than the circumference of their biceps -- lean, smoldering, woodsy-smelling men. Set in the 1750s during the French and Indian War, The Last of the Mohicans looks not only at the glorious possibilities of the New World, but at the violent collision of cultures that marked the beginning of European domination of the continent. The explosion brought about a sturdy hybrid represented by Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis), the European-born adopted son of the patrician Mohican Chingachgook. That's not to say that Day-Lewis's portrait of Hawkeye isn't just a little bit Hollywood. A cross between Iron John and romance-novel cover boy Fabio, the cerebral Brit promises to do for big hair what Don Johnson did for beard stubble in Mann's designer cop drama, TV's Miami Vice... Day-Lewis finds a dynamic match in Madeleine Stowe, who plays Cora Munro, the cultured daughter of the English officer in charge of Fort William Henry... Indeed the movie sets new standards when it comes to pent-up passion between not only Cora and Hawkeye, but also between Alice and Uncas, who have their own bodices to burst. The four of them look into the camera with such a burning yearning, it's amazing the lens didn't melt all over the sets (which are authentically dressed down to the porcupine-quill knife sheaths). There's nothing explicit, but talk about his-and-hers heaving bosoms, the hearts within hammering to Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman's gorgeous epic score... And if that isn't enough, there's the spectacular scenery... Of course, the movie's all the more poignant simply because that rugged paradise doesn't really exist anymore. In the real world, there are tacky souvenir shops and cheap motels down below. Mann's major achievement is that for two hours or so, he and his characters seem to have forgotten all that. They've thrown themselves into the project with [the] urgency of a bucket squad at a barn fire. - Rita Kempley