Straightforward Entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (9 November 2013)

Set in Scotland in a rugged and mythical time, "Brave" tells the tale of a young princess named Merida of the clan Dunbroch. One day she is given a longbow by her father, King Fergus, for her birthday, to her mother Queen Elinor's dismay. While practicing, Merida ventures into the woods to fetch a stray arrow, where she encounters a will-o'-the-wisp. Soon afterwards, Mor'du, a giant demon-bear, attacks the family. Merida escapes on horseback with Elinor, while Fergus fights off the bear at the cost of his left leg. Years later, Merida is now a free-spirited, headstrong girl with much younger identical triplet brothers. Elinor informs her that she is to be betrothed to one of her father's allied clans. Reminding Merida of a legend about a prince who had ruined his own kingdom by pride and refusal to follow his father's wishes, Elinor warns her that failure to consent to the marriage could harm Dunbroch, but Merida is still dissatisfied with the arrangement.
Brave starts out quite enchantingly and has wonderful animation and music. We have a mother and daughter relationship that's going through a rough patch with both involved having to learn to respect each other's point of views and 'mend the bond' between themselves. In the beginning, it had the magic that most Pixar movies have, but somewhere after the first act there was a jarring transition into mediocrity when compared to other Pixar works. It lost its ambition and went into a straightforward clichéd storytelling without any scope for it to be enchanting or intelligent. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I did have high hopes. I didn't know about one director leaving due to creative differences and another one replacing her beforehand. I think the good stuff was done by the first director while the second one just added more action into it while some of the story elements were taken away to make way for plot devices. A shame really. The movie has lots of mixed messages and doesn't have a proper direction. That said, at the end of the day, its a fun and entertaining mother-daughter bonding movie.
7.5/10