Review: Brave

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Brave

It's been nice to look forward to a Pixar movie again. I had next to no interest in Cars 2, and to tell you the truth, hadn't been especially thrilled about Toy Story 3, either. Adding to the anticipation was learning that Brave would have a female character in the lead (not something Pixar has done before unless you count Elastigirl in The Incredibles, which you just might) and as well, one of its directors would be a woman (Brenda Chapman, also credited as a co-writer).

Brave reminded me that Pixar's parent company is Disney. Brave could have very easily been the latest evolution of the Disney princess movie -- the tropes are nearly all either present, or intentionally turned on their head. Only the very superior trademark animation quality and the voice of John Ratzenberger are any indication that this is a Pixar film.

Merida (Kelly Macdonald), a teenager in long-ago Scotland, doesn't want to conform to her queenly mother's (Emma Thompson) ideas of how a princess should behave. She loves archery and horseback riding and her freedom, not embroidery and tightly corseted dresses. Her father (Billy Connolly) encourages her usually, but both her parents are at a loss when Merida refuses to cooperate in the contest between the heads of the clans in her kingdom for a young man to win her hand in marriage. In an act of desperation, Merida finds a magical means to change her fate, only to find that sometimes magic can play cruel tricks with wishes.

The story is fairly conventional for a fairy-tale movie, and even the characters are somewhat standard. Brave doesn't have quite the quirkiness or whimsy expected from Pixar. Merida could take her place in line next to Tiana and Mulan and Belle, the sparkier and more contemporary Disney princess/heroines. Co-writer/co-director Chapman has story credits for a number of Disney animated movies, including Beauty and the Beast, so this makes a certain sense.

And while the premise and universe of Brave are not as imaginative as Wall-E or Up, the movie is consistent in a way that those films are not -- a strong narrative thread, with no jarring change of genre halfway through. The fairy-tale tropes do feel a little too familiar at times: the witch who puts nasty yet educational loopholes in her spells, the deadline for accomplishing a quest, the comic relief from goofy minor characters -- in this case, three mischievous little brothers as well as three somewhat ridiculous tribe leaders and their sons. (And you can feel the effect of Dreamworks' gross fairy-tale movies here, very slightly, with a couple of bodily-humor gags the movie did not really need.)

The other aspect of Brave that makes it stand out is a strong mother-daughter relationship story -- and an amusing but important father-daughter relationship as well -- that compares very favorably against the standard Disney fairy-tale in which the mother always seems to be dead or missing.

In fact, all the family members here have loving relationships, despite Merida's current dissatisfaction with the way her parents are treating her. I particularly liked one very short scene in which Merida's mother, Queen Elinor, realizes she's nearly destroyed her daughter's favorite possession -- a bow -- and is upset about it despite the fact that she thinks Merida's love of archery is inappropriate. The story may be relatively straightforward and uncomplicated but the characters have warmth and depth.

I don't need to tell you that the voice cast is excellent, especially Thompson and Connolly (he hams it up a bit, but his character is just the type to behave that way), and that the animation is superb. I can't comment on the 3D -- I thought it was somewhat dark and blurry when I saw it, but a friend at that screening told me that he felt the theater's 3D calibration was off, since he'd seen clips in 3D elsewhere and they were much lovelier. I do think if I see it again, 2D will be just fine.

Brave has no houses lifted by masses of balloons, or lonely robots consoling themselves with movie clips, or gourmet-chef rats. It's not going to knock The Incredibles off the top of my list of favorite Pixar movies, but I'm not sure what would. It is a fairy-tale about a princess and her family, done extremely well. Take that as you will.