Pixar's Recovery Begins On A Brave Note.

Rating: Null/10 (7 October 2013)

Winner of Academy Award for Best Animated Film, Pixar's Brave is their only Oscar-winning feature to date that doesn't feel worthy of such honour for it travels a much safer & risk-free route unlike any of their previous works plus features a narrative that bears more similarity to Disney films than Pixar's unconventional method of storytelling.
Set in the Scottish Highlands, Brave tells the story of Merida; a skilled archer & princess who defies an old-age custom of her kingdom by choosing to not be betrothed. Wanting to take control of her own life rather than let it be decided by others, she stumbles upon a witch & asks for a spell to fulfil her wish, which goes horribly wrong.
Directed by Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman, Brave is what you get when you marry Disney's own fairy-tale elements with Pixar's unprecedented animation. While there's much to criticise just because it isn't the way Pixar generally do these things but there are also plenty of things to admire about, including the character of Merida who is no typical Disney princess.
While the story doesn't hold enough strength, Pixar's animation is still as jaw-dropping as it has always been. The images are breathtaking to look at, thanks to the incredible amount of detail present in its photo-realistic images as well as its expert use of colours & lighting, pacing is excellent in the first half, and its wonderful depiction of Scottish heritage is a welcome treat.
Patrick Doyle's score is mesmerising, beautiful & intimate, and stitches itself beautifully with the depicted era of kilts & bagpipes. Its homage to earlier Disney classics & Studio Ghibli is nicely done. The characters are funny, colourful & really benefit from its near-perfect voice cast who truly nail the required Scottish accent, while Merida herself steps us as the brave, fearless & strong-willed princess we aren't usually accustomed to.
Yet, there's no denying that I expected much more from this film because the trailers sort of promised it as a celebration of a young woman's independence instead of what it actually turned out to be i.e. a story about mother-daughter bonding. I still had a wonderful time with Brave, was thoroughly entertained by it if not blown away for it offers plenty of laughs throughout its runtime, has a playful tone & is gorgeously rendered.
On an overall scale, Pixar's first-foray into the fairy-tale sub-genre may not be the rebound this pioneering animation studio needed after its first taste of failure with Cars 2 in the preceding year but Brave still falls in the right direction in Pixar's road to recovery. Fun, adventurous, enjoyable, entertaining & satisfying, Brave is no groundbreaking cinema but its vivid portrayal of fate & family is still something that I absolutely & unexpectedly adored.