Brave (2012) Review

Directors: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell

Writers: Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman, and Irene Mecchi

Producers: Pete Doctor, John Lasseter, Katherine Sarafian, and Andrew Stanton

Editor: Nicholas C. Smith
Animators: Simon Allen, Dovi Anderson, Jude Brownbill, Courtney Casper, Andrew Coats, Robb Denovan, Curran W. Giddens, Aaron J. Hartline, Tsung-Yin Hsieh, Jaime Landes, Ramiro Lopez Dau, Rich McKain, Erick Oh, Charlie Ramos, Jessica Sances, Mark Sanford, Michael Sauls, Benjamin Su, Saschka Unseld, Charlene Wang, Royce Wesley, and Stephen L. Wong

Music: Patrick Doyle

Starring (voices): Kelly MacDonald, Emma Thompson, and Billy Connolly

Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes

Rating: PG (Scary action, rude humor)

Genre: Animated, Adventure, Family

Release Date: June 22, 2012

Intro: While I am not a huge fan of Disney movies, I do have a lot of respect for Pixar, since their movies are almost always amazingly better than any animated feature any other company can produce, both story and effects wise. When I went to see this, I was expecting another amazing Pixar movie. Sadly, this was not the case for Brave. Though Brave is a good movie with incredible animation, it just doesn't live up to the high expectations Pixar movies receive, as a predictable story and a surprising lack of originality, usually two of Pixar's strengths, weigh the movie down.

Plot: In ancient, I guess it could be Middle Ages mythical Scotland, a kingdom has been divided into 4 sections by a devastating war. The kingdom has recently been reunited under King Fergus, the bear king, though three other clans still exist.  Anyway, the clans decide to meet so Fergus can marry his daughter, Merida, off to one of the other clans and further strengthen the bonds of the kingdom. Merida, however, is a reluctant princess, as she is an excellent archer who does not want to be married just yet. However, her mother, Queen Elinor, tries desperately to whip her into what she thinks a proper princess should be. Merida resists as much as possible until one day when the clans are in town, she runs away and stumbles upon a witch who gives her a potion to help "change her fate," so she gives it to her mom who eats it and the fate-changing potion turns out to be more of a problem than anything else for Merida.

Things people may find “objectionable”: It's a PG movie that's intended for families, so there's really nothing that bad in the movie. The only thing is some mild toilet humor, probably intended to make sure the movie got rated PG instead of G, since PG movies generally sell better than G movies.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Cinematography/Animation: 10/10. Stunning visuals. If it had not been for the cartoon-like characters, it would be hard to distinguish the animated scenery from real life scenery. It was that good. Even the characters, though they looked less real than the scenery, still had amazingly lifelike movements. What never ceases to amaze me about Pixar's animations is how realistically they can make the hair look, especially as it moves with the character. Having worked quite a bit with stop-motion animation in the past, I can imagine just perfecting the hair took weeks, if not months.

     -Acting (voices): 10/10. The voice actors were all good and fit the characters they were playing pretty well. I have to give it to Pixar, they do get the best for their voice acting.

     -Writing: 7/10. The script was good, though they overuse the phrase "change your fate." As for the story, I was a disappointed in the predictability and lack of originality. The story was fine and they did a pretty good job in telling it, but it was pretty easy to guess what was going to happen next, which is never a good thing for a movie script, especially for a movie studio in Pixar that usually has very original stories. There just didn't seem to be anything too surprising in the story, with no major plot twists.

     -Music/Score: 8/10. Nothing special in the way of music, it was mainly just Scottish-themed tunes, but the music did fit the movie well.

     -Power/Emotion: 6/10. Not as high as I expected, though after a while I became at least somewhat concerned for the characters. I think the predictability ruined some of my emotional response because I had a pretty clear idea of what was going to happen, so I wasn't that concerned for the characters I knew would live and end up happy.

     -Adrenalinw: 5/10. There were some fairly exciting moments, but they were not the intent of the film, as the movie focuses much more on the relationship between Merida and her mom.

     -Mind-Bendingness: 1/10. Doesn't really make you think that deeply, but then again, this is clearly not the intent of the movie.

     -Humor: 4/10. There were a few funny moments, but like adrenalin, comedy was not an emphasis of the movie.

     -Final Score: While it's not a bad movie by any stretch, Brave just doesn't compare to any of Pixar's classics and is not up to the level of movies the studio should be making. It's somewhat enjoyable, but it's not the engaging, emotional and clever kind of story Pixar has become famous for making. I hope Pixar is able to rebound some and go back to making the kind of great movies that everyone knows it for. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes animated movies just for the beauty of the animation. It could also function well as a family film.