Brave - REVIEW

Maintaining a perfect track record is no easy feat, but with one miscalculation, one misstep, and years of top notch brand building and loyal fan base crumbles overnight. Those are exactly the waters Pixar’s been treading in the past year. “Cars 2” may have generated strong sales from everything slapped with the brand name, but critically the Mater-driven sequel was panned overall. So it’s understandable if audiences are leery to embrace Pixar’s thirteenth feature, “Brave.” Not only is “Brave” Pixar’s follow-up to the “Cars” sequel, but it’s also marks several firsts for the studio: first fairy-tale, first female lead and first film directed by a woman (until leaving the project due to “creative differences.”)

“Brave” opens with our heroine Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) constrained by duty and ancient customs (with the preparations of an arranged marriage to one of three noble suitors driving her even further down the road of rebellion). Being the free spirit that she is, Merida has no interest in being tied down as a proper lady like her mother (Emma Thompson), but she would rather choose her own fate as an archer and warrior princess. In one pivotal act of defiance, Merida runs away from home and comes across a witch who will fulfill her wishes of freedom.

Pixar is certainly back on their “A” game with “Brave,” taking no shortcuts in properly telling their first fairy tale. The trailers from “Brave” don’t do the film justice and may unintentionally lead some to believe that it unfolds as a coming-of-age story with the red-headed princess morphing into an archetypal female warrior. That is hardly the case as the true focus of “Brave” rests on the shaky mother-daughter relationship between Princess Merida and Queen Elinor. Pixar has reused that device countless times before in “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles” and “Up,” but here director Mark Andrews taps into its full potential. By the end of “Brave,” you want Merida and her mother to reconcile their differences after all that the two of them endure.

 

The challenges that Merida meets along the way are the same ones many children and young adults go through, ultimately making her one of the most relatable characters to transcend both genders in a Pixar film. Likewise, parents will cling more to Queen Elinor’s perspective of the conflict, always wanting what’s best for their child at the expense of being blinded by their own ideals. Billy Connolly provides a handful of laughs as King Fergus, who’s more of a looser parental figure than his wife. The family dynamic works as a triangular push-pull sort with each relationship clearly defined and distinctive to the overall tension.

Outside of the dominant mother-daughter conflict, the remaining pieces of “Brave” are straightforward and hardly come across as tangential in its brisk 90 minute run time. There’s never a moment when the story lulls or drags and it’s always self-conscious of keeping its simplistic paradigm intact. Sure there are times, many times in fact when “Brave” can’t shake being a derivative mash-up of “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Brother Bear” swapped out with a princess. But instead of being a negative, Pixar flips that label into a positive, exploiting the best of both worlds in creating a stronger, more dynamic tale filled with a stronger sense of well-roundedness.  

At times, Andrews does take the film on a few frightening turns for younger audiences, particularly the forest run-ins with demon bear Mor’du. That combined with Merida cautiously following a flickering breadcrumb trail, known as the will-o’-the-wisps, throughout the forest amps up the adrenaline level simply by taking a book from Scottish mythology. But for all its mystery and magic, the darker moments are nicely balanced by wee bits in solidifying humor, whether it be the antics of Merida’s food-obsessed triplet brothers or a few shots of some Scottish backside (no kilt involved either). Some of the latter humor might seem a tad low-brow for Pixar’s standards, but it’s nothing too offensive and done so in harmless fun.             

As expected, Pixar has surpassed its visual limits once again, constructing yet another fantastical realm with the Scottish highlands. Every scene in “Brave” appears to be showered with extra care, from detailed forest expanses and something as miniscule as the tens of thousands of strands of Merida’s hair. Together with a fantastic voice ensemble featuring Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Julie Walters, Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane, “Brave” is the perfect one way vacation to Scotland (minus the occasional bear attacks of course). Composer Patrick Doyle adds his own flair with a remarkable score that flows throughout the film. With such scores as “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and “Thor” under his belt, Doyle is more than qualified to capture the beauty of Scotland through his latest score.

After understanding what to truly expect, “Brave” goes from being an uneasy game bait-and-switch that’s been misinterpreted to one of Pixar’s finest films on every imaginable level. From the title, courage seems like a physical trait rather than coming to terms with personal differences.  Perhaps if Pixar left the title alone at “The Bear and the Bow,” as it was originally intended, there’d be less confusion on the matter.

It’s refreshing to see Pixar go back to its roots by producing its first non-sequel since 2009’s “Up.” Until last year, Pixar was always about story first and merchandise second. Merida dolls will probably go over big with girls, but this isn’t some movie that’s hosed down in feminism or girl-power despite Pixar testing the waters with its first female protagonist. The messages conveyed through “Brave” are more powerful and timely than anything Pixar has previously put out.  But even if she’s not the typical Disney Princess, Merida can proudly stand alongside an equally iconic list of characters from Pixar (and rightfully so).

“Brave” is magic in its purest form that will surely cross generations and genders alike like the dozen films that came before. And any doubts that Pixar’s 15 year streak is over can be put to rest. Pixar is back and better than ever. 

GRADE: A+ (10/10)

This review is also available on Blu-Ray.com