It's fine, but also very by the numbers

Rating: Null/10 (22 October 2019)

There have been quite a many Disney films in the 21st century that feel very much like Pixar films. It goes to follow that there would be a Pixar film that feels like a Disney film. This is that movie.
Brave is the tale of Merida, a Scottish princess, who ironically tries to avoid that one fate for which many other Disney princesses have almost literally sold their souls: marriage. So she finds a wood witch and gets herself a cursed piece of of bakery, which she promptly offers to her mother, the main architect of the looming betrothal. But, once again our plucky heroine refused to read the fine print and the results of the spells are not quite what she was looking for. Are they ever?
Brave is certainly a pretty film. Sure, some of the backgrounds and certain scenes show their age a little bit, but there are also scenes, especially in the forest, that still look very impressive. There's also Merida's hair, which is just silly in its complexity.
Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of the story. It's very derivative of earlier Disney efforts, very predictable and doesn't stray far from the usual clichés and tropes. There's also the fact that it's not internally consistent. For example, there's a very good scene between Merida and her mother around the end of the second act. The only problem being that the curse should have been broken right there and then. It of course doesn't, because we still have the whole third act to go through, but it should have. And it does, at the end of the film, when we have almost the exact same scene all over again. Only this time it works, for plot reasons.
Still, it's still a Pixar film. Meaning that even though it's not their best film by any means, it still has heaps of content, quality and charm. It'd not be my first pick if I wanted to watch a Pixar film, but if it's on TV, I'll watch it every time.