Very sub-par for Pixar

Rating: 4/10 (23 June 2012)

Our family loves Pixar films, so we eagerly anticipated the release of 'Brave.' However, we were very disappointed. It is the worst Pixar film we've ever seen.
The main character, Merida, is not a lovable heroine like Mulan; instead, she is a whining, bratty child. She has no endearing qualities like one would find in Snow White or Belle.
The plot does not make sense, either. Merida doesn't want to get married and believes if she changes her mother's mind on the matter, she won't have to. Nevermind the culture of the time and pressures of her father and her political system, right? It's nonsense that changing her mother's mind would have any effect on whether or not she'd have to get married.
We hadn't read a lot of reviews before going, so we were a little surprised by the whole plot, which is that Merida's mother is turned into a bear by Merida's selfish act of poisoning her with a cake she gets from a witch. The mother dealing with being in the bear body is funny for about thirty seconds. Unfortunately, it goes on for the majority of the film.
I guess we're supposed to see that mother and daughter find common ground in the woods and come to respect each other. However, emotionally, the film is completely flat. You will not find the loving family bonds from The Incredibles here! And forget about the heart string tugs you saw in Up... not happening in Brave.
The accents are over the top. Yeah, I get it, they're Scottish. But we're not. They could have toned that down a little.
The potty humor and grotesque portrayal of EVERY adult male in the film made it feel more like a lower-class Dreamworks film than a Pixar/Disney.
Overall, very disappointing. Had it been a Dreamworks, it would have been maybe a 7/10, but Pixar has set the bar so high with other films, that we really expected better.