My expectations were pretty high for Brave. They were made higher by the fact that Cars 2 was so awful. But the problem with high expectations, is that they are easy to fall short of.
My expectations were pretty high for Brave. They were made higher by the fact that Cars 2 was so awful. But the problem with high expectations, is that they are easy to fall short of.
Brave is the story of young Merida who doesn’t want to be in an arranged marriage and wants to live her own life. While well-tread, this is still a great starting point for a coming of age movie, but not enough to hang your whole movie on, which is what ultimately happens. What if Luke Skywalker fought with his aunt and uncle about being a farmer for the whole movie? 20th Century Fox wouldn’t have cared about losing the merchandising rights. But I digress.
Without getting into spoilers, in the middle of the movie, it goes to a place I did not expect. And it stays there for WAY too long. Look, no one is really into bears that much. (Except for Grizzly Man, and he was killed by one) I kept expecting one of the movie bears to get his head stuck in a honey pot. No more bears. Have we learned nothing from Country Bear Jamboree, Disney?
The movie has some great moments and evokes some genuine emotion. The relationship between mother and daughter, and parent and child is well done and feels natural. We feel at once the rebelliousness of youth and the burden of adult responsibility. Pay the bills, feed the kids, arrange the marriage, etc. I think we all just want to run into the forest and follow Wisps sometimes.
Visually, this movie is amazing. Lush, photorealistic backgrounds blend seamlessly with animated characters full of… character. The level of detail is an achievement in animation. There is always one more bag of magic tricks in the Pixar digital toolbox.
So what’s the kid verdict? My seven year old daughter loved it. I think that’s a good age for this film, since it does have some scary bear-on-human/bear-on-bear-action. I just made that sound creepier than it was. So use your discretion with the wee ones.
Brave is a much smaller movie that I thought it was going to be. It looks like an animated Celtic epic, full of magic, wonder and adventure. It ends up having those things, but in much smaller quantities than anticipated. Ultimately, it’s the story of the relationship between mother and daughter. That would be fine, but Brave pretends it has more, and it doesn’t. It needed more. Of everything.
Brave is good, but not perfect. It takes too long to get where it needs to go, but it gets there in the end. Ultimately, it’s a good movie when judged against other movies. But when judged against the higher bar that Pixar itself raised, it falls a bit short. But again, it’s relative. Brave is still a good movie. Just judge it against Shrek and not Up.
–Chris Mancini