Pixar Slipping With 'Brave'

Brave


5/10


The wonderful animators at Pixar are at it again with an original story from the Highlands of Scotland. In this story, Young Merida is a free spirit who loves archery and roaming the vast lands of her beloved country. However, her queen mother, Elinor, has other plans for her daughter. Elinor believes that Merida must be a proper princess and with this comes a lot of etiquette lessons and telling her daughter what to do. Then comes the day when Fergus, the king/father, and Elinor invite three other Scottish clans to a tournament. In this tournament the first born sons must compete to win the hand of the young princess. Unfortunately, Merida does not like this and decides to change her fate. With the help of a old witch in the woods, Merida decides to change her mothers' mind about the betrothal in hopes that Merida may decide on her own who she will marry and when. But instead of changing her mind, Merida changes her mother into a bear. Now Merida must find a way to change her back without getting her mother slain in the process.


Pixar has created a new princess, Merida, to be added to a prestigious line of  Disney princesses. Merida is not unlike any of the other princesses, she is young, strong willed, and wanting to be different. The only problem with Merida is that she is too unlike the other princess to even set herself apart from the rest. While watching the film I kept thinking of The Little Mermaid and how Ariel wanted to be different as well. Merida also has the red hair and a unique attribute that sets her apart from the rest of the characters. The writers of this film poorly executed the story and what I mean by this is that there was no real setup to the story. The leap into the main story was so fast that Merida just came across as a spoiled little teenager that wasn't getting her way. If this was the point, then they achieved it magically. Unlike other great Pixar films, there was no real connection to the characters and/or the story. As much as I would hate to say it, Cars set up a better connection with their characters than this film did. Also, there is a sub plot and character to this film that, by way of execution, seemed quite pointless. The sub plot is that of a prince that basically wanted the same as Merida. But here again, because the writers and/or directors don't delve to deeply into this story, the prince comes across as spoiled. This movie had so much potential to be one of the best Pixar films ever made. And I am talking up there with the likes of Nemo, Toy Story, and Up. The movie just doesn't live up to the Pixar name.


Now there are some good points to this film. First and foremost is the scenery to this film. Pixar has created a beautiful Scotland, not that the country needed any help bringing its beauty to the rest of the world. The landscapes that the artists develop at times almost become a character all their own. The second, is the mother/daughter story. I know that I kind of bashed this point in the beginning of this review, but toward the end of the film I began to see what the writers/directors were aiming to do. The one problem of this point is that it comes to late for you to even start to care. Of course the last good thing about this film is its humor. The writers do try to bring in a little humor to the story and it does work in most of the scenes its used.


This is truly a mother/daughter movie, just not a very good one. I have always found that Pixar never really aims their films to one gender or another. I personally think Pixar needs to stay away from that. With Pixar targeting a certain group of kids/adults, it takes away what truly made Pixar superb above all other animation studios including Disney and that is story and character. I will finish by saying this... If you are a fan of Pixar, do see this film for the fact that they tried to make what could have been a wonderful addition to a great line of films from this company. However, try not to expect to much from this film.