Review of Brave (2012) by M A — 22 May 2013

The early trailers for this film convinced you that this was going to be an epic and magical adventure (with some whimsical humor) that the geniuses at Pixar were going to take you on--a redemption of Cars 2 of the previous year. As time went on, I began to see newer trailers/tv spots for the film, that left me in question.

Why are they marketing this as a down-right comedy now?

What's with the bear cub and the boobs thing?

Has Pixar lost their minds?

I saw the movie in theaters. I went in alone (as a film critic), still with very high expectations for the film despite the recent questionable advertisements it had.

The film starts out with Merida (the main character) as a little girl. It's her birthday, she gets a bow from her father as a gift. Little Merida goes into the forest to find her lost arrow, and finds what they call "wisps". She retrieves her lost arrow, and goes back to tell her parent what she saw, and then her party gets crashed by a 15 foot monster bear. You'd think all of these things would connect later in the movie or help along the plot... but no. Seriously, this opening sequence has nothing to do with what the film is really about.

Turns out that Merida's mother arranged for her to get married, and the suitors are on their way. Merida doesn't want to get married, and tries to break tradition in her own way, and runs away to find a witch in the forest who gives her a cake that changes her mother into a bear. And because the spell didn't do what she wanted, Merida is trying to get a refund. That's it.

Really there's no need for the movie to be called "Brave" since there were no achievements in bravery in this film. I personally though that "Rebel" would've been a better title since it was basically all about Merida's rebellion against her mother, family, and cultural traditions. And they for some reason throw the 15 foot bear back into the movie, as well as comic nudity (which I found to be more on Dreamworks' level) and a "hilarious" moment where the bear cub lands in a heavy-set servant woman's boobs (which I found had Disney written all over it).

Basically, the animation was beautiful, but the story was a mess. They had too many ideas for the story and it felt like they wanted to please all the story writers so they shoved everything in. This is sad because at one time, Pixar prided themselves on story. Everyone knows if a film doesn't have a good story, it's not going to be good. There are so many examples of that courtesy of Dreamworks Animation (Shrek the Third, Bee Movie, Madagascar 1).

I really wanted Brave to be my new favorite Pixar movie, but it came up short. Just like Cars 2, I enjoyed the Pixar animated short film more than the actual feature film. I will buy Brave on DVD in due time, (since I am a hardcore Pixar fan, and I own every movie), but like Cars 2 (which I also have on DVD) I will rarely watch it.

Disney has very much taken over Pixar, and it's really starting to show ever since Cars 2. Let's hope that the Monster Inc prequel (Monsters University) doesn't disappoint.