Brave User Reviews

A lot has been made about Brave being the first Pixar film to feature a female protagonist. It is also the first time a female,Brenda Chapman[, at Pixar was in the director's chair co-directing with Mark Andrews. I’m a middle class,caucasian,20 something who has not studied feminism. So I can’t really comment on them from that aspect. Nor do I think that these two things are such a big deal. A good character is a good character.

Those things didn’t raise my expectations. What did was the fact that this is Pixar was releasing another movie after the less than enticing Cars 2. For over a half decade,(2004-2010) Pixar released just great films, not great computer animated films, or great animated films, they put out great film.

Coming out of Brave I was a little let down. This movie isn’t poorly done in fact it’s quite beautiful at times. Everything is just so surface level. Where is the depth?

Brave is the story of Merida, a Princess in the highlands of Scotland. Her father is the Bear King Fergus. Her mother is Queen Elinor. She doesn't really get along with her mom, always training her to be the perfect Princess bound by duty and expectations. Merida doesn't really want to be a princess or Queen yet. She rather ride her horse, climb tall things, and shoot arrows. She can’t just do those things though, she is a Princess. The other clans soon arrive and present their firstborn sons for betrothal. Of course Merida makes a scene and runs off into the magical forest.

King/Queen Character Poster

At its heart Brave is a mother daughter tale. You are able to figure out the dynamic between Merida and Elinor by the first act. And that’s that there isn’t much else to it. Merida is an interesting character. Her mother also could of been an interesting character but we aren’t given much in the way of backstory or motivation. She speaks of duty and averting chaos, bringing up an old legend. This doesn't inform us about her though it tells us about the role of government. What about her backstory when she was a young girl? Her viewpoints as a mother are understandable it’s just a little light.

The rest of her family is also loosely characterized more there to push the plot than be a character. Merida is an interesting character hopefully they make a sequel and do something interesting with her.

With a light story the thing that really stood out to me is the animation quality. Meridas hair is beautiful. For the longest time hair in computer animated movies wasn’t that great but the vibrant coloring and follicle count constantly had me staring at it. The forest and hills surrounding the castles are also great. The character models in comparison don’t look that great, they are still animated well.

For the first time I can remember a Pixar movies humor was predominantly physical, normally surrounding the use of kilts. There are a couple funny lines but the majority of it involves pantomime and kilts. It isn’t trite body humor and hits more than it misses. The younger audience members laughed.

Brave is a good movie. Just in comparison to other Pixar movies it is lacking. If this movie had come from Dreamworks the shallow criticism would most likely be less. Pixar has a reputation of deeper movies as well as damn good kids movies. They didn’t make a deep movie that was great for adults and little kids. They made a good kids movie, that while not deep isn’t going to annoy the parents and is overall entertaining.

Even Studio Ghibli made Tales from Earthsea.