Not nearly as "Brave" as it could have been

Rating: 7/10 (6 April 2013)

Supposedly after going through a couple rewrites, producers, directors, "Brave" went out to the public with most of us not really sure about the film, but very intrigued all the same. Pixar had never done anything like this, and after the pointless "Cars 2", a lot of us were hoping "Brave" would redeem Pixar and pick it back up on its feet as one of the best animation studios to date... unfortunately it let a lot of us down. But by no means, this is not a bad movie in the slightest; it has colorful and lush animation (like Pixar always does), fun and memorable characters (I particularly like Meridas father Fergus, voiced by Billy Connolly, and his three mischievous triplets), and a likable, "play-it-safe-no-risks" storyline that calls back to films about rebellious teenage girls like "The Little Mermaid" and is usually always enjoyed... but that is EXACTLY the problem this film ever so suffers from.
"Brave" is extremely inconsistent in terms of its tone. The original trailer for this was building up to a deep epic story about finding ones self, and confronting ones fears through always being "brave". Later trailers revealed more lighthearted, goofy elements, but all the same Pixar has had a habit of making their movie trailers looking very silly, but they always come off as very good movies (save Cars 2, which was good, but again, NOT needed). Once I saw the movie, I enjoyed it as a whole, but at the same time was very disappointed in the end result.
It starts off very nicely during the first half of the film, but the second half is when it really botches was it was originally building up to. We've got a Scottish kingdom, and in this beautifully created world we've got Merida (Kelly MacDonald), a young teenage girl who just wants to be free and do what she feels is her "destiny", and eventually was to go out and look for it. She goes through her emotions about not wanting to be queen, rebelling against her strict mother (Emma Thompson), to the point of going out and finding her "destiny". Up to that point, the movie was doing really well; how the animators captured the Scottish countryside and some of its culture is well done, as well as some very funny Scottish humor (drinking, brawling, mooning), enjoyable characters that are memorable enough that make you want to see the film more than once, and having some good buildup as to what Meridas "destiny" would be. And this is where it takes a turn for the worse.
Once Merida gets a potion to change her mother from a sneaky old witch, therefore changing her destiny, the film takes a "Brother Bear" feel when the potion literally turns her mother into a bear herself (should have seen it coming since the main antagonist is an evil bear, who was once a man himself). Thereafter Merida has to find a way to keep her mother safe and return her to normal before her mother loses her human self becomes a bear with no human emotions at all. That does sound all interesting, but it plays out very safely and times it seems too traditionally Disney, and even though this is a Disney film, that's not what we were expecting from this. Once the end of the story rolls along, it resumes the tone that the beginning of the film captured, but by that point we were disappointed, because we wanted the whole movie to be like that.
Nonetheless, after ranting here, "Brave" isn't a bad movie at all, it just doesn't live up to our expectations, therefore making it one of Pixars lesser films. But it still manages to keep our attention with good characters, beautiful Pixar animation, and manages to capture the Scottish feel pretty well. Certainly not as "Brave" as it could have been, but it still manages to hold up nonetheless... well, almost anyway.
7/10 sonicfan5715/Jeffrey V