Brave - A stunningly beautiful, if albeit a tad predictable, adventure for the whole family

Rating: 8/10 (23 June 2012)

Brave tells the tale of Merida, a Scottish princess who is wrestling against her impending fate to be married as hard as she's wrestling with her mother, Elinor. Merida would much rather be wandering the country-side and practicing archery while riding her horse, Angus, than being tied up in corsets and presented to suitors. One day, after a particularly nasty fight with her mother, Merida stumbles upon a witches hut in the woods. Together they strike a deal to make a spell for Merida to change her fate, and well, things get a wee bit complicated.
Merida marks PIXAR's first addition to the Disney princess pantheon. Time will tell how she resonates with that audience, but I think she's a worthy addition. Merida, as well as the rest of the cast, are beautifully animated and rendered, but not quite PIXAR's finest. It's kind of hard to judge them this way, since the company's forte has really been creating anthropomorphic characters. But The Incredibles managed to create some very interesting looking human characters and Brave's come up just a little short by comparison. Merida and her mother are really the center stage characters though, and their relationship is well crafted and engrossing. The real visual treats are the environments and the scenery. The natural beauty of Scotland really shines through the animator's use of the areas lush forests and greenery. The scenes with Merida just riding through the woods or climbing a hill are absolutely spectacular.
Of special note is the soundtrack, which is beautiful on all accounts. The violin, fiddles, flutes, and bagpipes are melded together by Patrick Doyle to create something almost transformative. I've always been a fan of traditional Scottish music for its ability to paint a vivid and mystical picture with some very unique sounds, and Doyle's score is no exception. When mixed with the mountains and the rivers and the majesty of Scotland, the combination is extraordinarily breathtaking.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the story, which gets a little mundane by around the halfway point. It's not boring by any means, but it does begin to feel a little standard. It's about the point that Merida meets the witch that things become a little derivative, but this is really only so evident because the beginning of the movie is so good. While not a backwards slide in narrative at this point, it is a bit of a plateau that holds steady until the end. Brave is still a great cautionary tale for young women (and their mothers too) about riding the fine line of making your own way, but doing it without trampling on the people that got you where you are. It's just going to feel more than a little familiar in the end.
Don't get me wrong though. Brave is an excellent movie and I'd highly recommend it to the old and the young alike. We'll certainly be seeing it again at sometime, and will definitely own it when it's released for home viewing. Something can be found in Brave to entertain the whole family, and that is really where PIXAR shines. They don't pander to either the kids or the parents, and instead set out to make a real film with mature themes, that are boiled down in essence for everyone to understand. The result is always a mix that resonates well with everyone. Brave's problem is that it's only great compared to extraordinary. PIXAR has really spoiled us with the quality of their products since Toy Story all those years ago. But at the end of the day, a second rate PIXAR movie is still better than the majority of other features produced by the Hollywood system, and that's a pretty good position to be in.
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