Better Luck Next Time, Pixar

Rating: 3/10 (23 July 2019)

Pixar's first (and hopefully, only) stab at making a princess movie has proved that they aren't very good at it. At it's simplest, Brave is an obnoxious film populated by unloveable caricatures of Scottish people. The narrative is childishly dull in its' execution: a particularly crabby princess named Merida is understandably displeased with the idea of an arranged marriage, and blames her mother for it. However, in the midst of her tantrum-throwing about it, she fails to realize that her mother is just trying to operate in a society where such things were unfortunately the norm, and isn't conspiring against her. Merida rashly visits a dotty witch to get something to change her mother, and is shocked when her mother doesn't change her mind, but instead turns into a bear. What follows is a tedious series of adventures in the woods, culminating in a battle with an inexplicable evil bear and a sappy happy ending. The men are pretty much all depicted as being stupid and hideous for effect, but this doesn't help us see the plight of the protagonist. On the contrary, Merida is largely insufferable herself, callously gambling with her own mother to get want she wants. The only person you can understand or sympathize with is her mother, and that's literally it. Overall, the film is ugly, cliched, and poorly written, and I don't recommend it to anyone.