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Brave is the 13th feature film by Pixar, and the first non-sequel of theirs since 2009. I went into Brave with only a vague idea of what to expect. I was aware of the film getting less than glowing praise, with some considering it lower on the totem pole in terms of Pixar movie quality. Personally, I don't understand this underwhelming response. Brave fully met and exceeded my expectations - it's a gorgeously animated, heartfelt story that still maintained Pixar charm, and I found myself enjoying nearly every minute of it. The trailers and advertisements would lead you to believe that the film is a typical princess story with undertones of "girl power", to quote critiques I regularly heard before the release. However, the trailers reveal very little of the actual story, and the meat of the movie actually goes against expectations. I have to admit that I can only somewhat see why people criticize Brave for being "safe": yes, the plot does have a predictable outcome, but in no way is it a paint-by-the-numbers, seen it a million times story. I thought there was still a good deal of unique and exciting elements, complete with likable characters and touching moments. The animation was breathtaking. Pixar always has a way of topping themselves - the scenery, animation, everything is gorgeous. While Merida's hair is breathtakingly animated (it must have taken a team of animators to pull off that one detail alone), I have to admit that the character herself had a bit of an unsettling look to her. I can't quite pinpoint it, but at certain times, her face looked a bit strange and doll-like, as opposed to feeling like a real person. That was probably an artistic choice, however, so I can't really fault them for it, and otherwise, the character design of everyone else was great. Although I wouldn't call it my all-time favorite Pixar movie, I was thoroughly impressed, as I went into the theater with admittedly low expectations. I encourage everybody to give the movie a try, as I don't believe Pixar has lost their touch just yet. 4.5/5
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| # ? Jun 25, 2012 01:58 |
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AREEEES!!
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| # ? May 20, 2013 17:35 |
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Brave is an outstanding return to form after Cars 2, which was borderline unwatchable for me thanks to the decision to make Larry the Cable Guy the lead. Don't expect a grand adventure going in - this is, first and foremost, a movie about the relationship between mother and daughter. Similarly, don't expect a Disney princess movie, either. Expect stunning visuals, plenty of humor, and some touching moments as well. Brave is not the best Pixar movie ever made, but it does a good job of making you forget about their previous misstep. The short preceding the movie is absolutely beautiful as well. 4.5/5
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| # ? Jun 25, 2012 02:48 |
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I think I went into this movie expecting something similar to "How to Train your Dragon" and ultimately was disappointed. I was thrown off by the promotional posters; most of which made the movie seem like Pixar was trying to do something serious like The Incredibles again. Basically, don't go into this movie expecting an epic fantasy with a badass redheaded chick kicking rear end and slaying monsters through the whole film. She doesn't. I would however say that this is a really good family film and especially good for mothers and young girls. However, even once I realized that that's what this movie was going to be and accepted it; I still found myself getting bored and losing interest. The pacing isn't very good and honestly I felt like I was watching one of Pixar's shorts instead of a feature film at times. If you have to see Brave in theaters pay for the 2D version, there was nothing really special about seeing it in 3D and I felt the 3D version also was a detriment to the film because it seemed to cause blurring when the camera panned. 3.5/5 Orange_Lazarus fucked around with this message at Jun 25, 2012 around 03:27 |
| # ? Jun 25, 2012 02:51 |
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Brave takes a traditional fantasy story and puts just the right amount of feminist heroism that should be present in a contemporary classic. The film does not drag on and you would be hard pressed to find a quiet moment to check your watch. Like others have said, this is a movie about the relationship between a queen and her daughter, and because of that the absence of a love story or any real male protagonist is a welcome sight in a market that's still undeniably dominated by male lead characters. I wouldn't change anything about Brave. 5/5
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| # ? Jun 25, 2012 20:53 |
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I was sort of thinking, "How to Train Your Dragon" when I walked into Brave. After having my film-buddy not show up and having to sit through it myself, I wonder if that might've had an effect on how I saw it. I loved the characters, minus the extent to which I was hoping Merida would be pulling the "girl proves period society wrong" thing. I loved the scenery and animations, too. The bow firing in the trailer was incredible. Also, her three brothers were hilarious. I did not, however, like the story. At first when she went to the witches hut, I was expecting the 'man with the strength of ten men' to be the bulky, nervous heir at the games. It seemed like that would make an awesome story: he's the nervous and shy one, she's the strong-willed and fiery one, they both get mixed up by seeing the same witch for a wish, and then they go on an adventure and fall in love. But it was not meant to be. Instead the story started to seem contrived, and totally ditched the 'strong girl' line (unless you count the story centering around Merida and her mother as being that line, which I don't). In short, I went in with high expectations and experienced a letdown. Wanted it to be a lot better. 3/5 P.S. Did they just ditch the queen's crown by the riverside?
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| # ? Jul 15, 2012 16:16 |
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Somehow this story felt like it could have been told in 15 minutes if they cut down on the pointless jokes and one dimensional characters that went almost nowhere. The girl and her mother are the focus of the story, and the only interesting part. I came away from the movie's entire story feeling like I'd only watched the first third of a film and the real story hadn't yet kicked in. I appreciate them trying to do a story about a young adult character though, and the feminist angle is all right. The worst part of the movie to me? The cheap scottish jokes and the horribly inaccurate scottish stereotypes. Kilts that were never worn by scots till the 17th century? Woad that was only worn by celts and applied to the face with semen from gay lovers? Brutish manliness that was introduced as fictional scottish stereotypes by the victorians to condescend to the highly intellectual Scottish populace with a rich philosophical & scientific heritage (example: David Hume) that they were merely brutish 'noble savages'? The victorian fictions of scottish heritage are going to take forever to dispel thanks to heritage-butchering films like Braveheart and this. C'mon, Pixar - you can do way better research than that. It also doesn't sit well with me that a film about breaking gender stereotypes reinforces scottish ethnic stereotypes. The short beforehand is wonderful though, and shows that there's still creative ingenuity at Pixar. 3/5 Spacedad fucked around with this message at Jul 22, 2012 around 00:11 |
| # ? Jul 22, 2012 00:04 |
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I have high expectations for Pixar features. As far as I'm concerned, they're the best in the business at what they do. Unfortunately, this time I was dissapointed and I left Brave feeling incredibly underwhelmed. It just didn't do it for me. I found the plot to be pretty thin, it didn't really go anywhere. I don't know if it was just the theatre I was in, but the film seemed dark the entire time which really detracted from the visual aspect so I didn't really enjoy that either. It's hard to put my finger on why I didn't like this movie, because it's not a bad movie really, it's just kind of 'blah'. It's not that it was overtly terrible but that there just wasn't much good about it to speak of. I was bored for much of the movie and that hardly ever happens. I guess the whole 'your mom is a bear now' being the major plot point didn't resonate with me. The characters weren't particularily memorable, the writing wasn't very clever, and it just lacked charm in general. I would have expected such a banal movie out of other studios, and I guess my expectations were pretty lofty. I've avoided the Cars movies, but after Toy Story 3 this was a dissapointment. There was more profound moments of emotion and intrigue in the short which preceeded Brave than in the entire movie itself. 2/5
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| # ? Jul 24, 2012 08:43 |
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Spacedad posted:The worst part of the movie to me? The cheap scottish jokes and the horribly inaccurate scottish stereotypes. Kilts that were never worn by scots till the 17th century? Woad that was only worn by celts and applied to the face with semen from gay lovers? Brutish manliness that was introduced as fictional scottish stereotypes by the victorians to condescend to the highly intellectual Scottish populace with a rich philosophical & scientific heritage (example: David Hume) that they were merely brutish 'noble savages'? The victorian fictions of scottish heritage are going to take forever to dispel thanks to heritage-butchering films like Braveheart and this. C'mon, Pixar - you can do way better research than that. It also doesn't sit well with me that a film about breaking gender stereotypes reinforces scottish ethnic stereotypes. Yeah, I'd be lying if I said this all didn't bother me too; way too much time spent on milking stereotypical humor. But aside from misunderstanding Scottish culture (heck, if you wanted to be pedantic, Scotland isn't Scottish*), the films greater problem is that Pixar just tried to do too much. See, the main story to me seems to be about a mother and her daughter solving their differences, and that's fine; that is clearly what this movie is about. But Pixar tries to bite off more than it can chew by including a subplot regarding which clan will be the next ruler of the kingdom, including some Big Ol' Bear that really has no reason to be there, putting this movie on the pile of Movies That Do Not Need Their Villains and as such, has a lot of action scenes and vignettes that either take away from that central conflict, or go too fast. It's like the director and/or the the writers weren't confident enough to make their movie all about a mother-daughter relationship and pandered to action fans by putting in more actrion-y bits, but it just feels like padding, and you don't really want to do that with a 90 minute film. There's also the problem of too many extraneous characters. Not nearly enough was done with King Fergus (Billy Connolly) outside of comic relief, yet as the father in this relationship, he should have been given more to do, especially given his apparent closeness with the main character. Same for the character of the witch, who is given absolutely no reason or explanation behind the spell she gave Merida, and just leaves the story after a single scene. Huh? Same with the clan chiefs and their heirs, who don't really do much of anything except react to stuff. So much of this could have been avoided if the plot or central theme was tying all of this stuff together, such as if the heirs were more involved in the plot of Merida, or if the legend this film is supposedly based on had a little more to do with the central conceit of mothers and daughters. As it is, it just feels so rushed, slapdash, and bloated that one can't help but feel cheated after it's finished. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot to like. It has some gorgeous, lush scenery and a great soundtrack, ther's some fun to be had (if you can get aroiund the stereotypes), I admired the attention paid to feminism and especially that Merida didn't end up with anybody, as well as some deliciously dark moments that I frankly wished were explored further. However, the problems listed above keep it from really being anything other than pretty good. 3/5 *Apparently, Scotland gets its name from the Celtic tribe of the Scoti, who came to Caledonia (i.e. ancient Britain) from Ireland about the time the Roman Empire started withdrawing from that area, in the 5th or 6th century AD. By the time the 11th century rolled around, the Scoti had spread throughout mainland Scotland, hence the name. Also, kilts are an Irish invention with a Dutch name, bagpipes were mentioned in the friggin' Old Testament, haggis is Greek, porridge has been around for at least thousands of years, and whiskey was invented in China! The more you know. But I digress. resurgam40 fucked around with this message at Nov 24, 2012 around 04:44 |
| # ? Nov 24, 2012 04:30 |
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| # ? May 20, 2013 17:35 |
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This is the first Pixar movie I actually ended up turning off halfway through, and I managed to sit through all of Cars. Unlikeable characters, go nowhere, non-involving plot, throw in some smattering of morality and bam, you have a movie that seems more like it fits towards a DreamWorks production than the high standards that they've kept. Merida throws her self from place to place, whining the whole time. What's she whining about? Responsibility that's glazed over within a few minutes. if you want to watch a kid's movie about a redhead dealing with growing up issues, rewatch the Little Mermaid. 2/5 because some of it is actually quite pretty, but mark it down more if you get the heebie geebies from "Pixar Face" (you know what I'm talking about). Octopus Magic fucked around with this message at Apr 4, 2013 around 21:20 |
| # ? Apr 3, 2013 21:48 |
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