OK, so I'm a Pixar junkie.

Rating: 9/10 (27 November 2012)

I'll admit 'Brave' doesn't have quite the wall to wall boldness, rule-breaking and sheer brilliance of the very best of Pixar's work, but I'll still take it over 95% of the Hollywood films I've seen this year. It never bored me, it made me smile a lot, laugh a little, and was a more touching look at the complexity of mother and daughter relationships than most grown-up films that try to deal with the subject. It also has a heroine who is a spunky, tough and first rate advocate for girl power, while still being heart-meltingly vulnerable at just the right moments. And it has tremendously talented voice actors in Billy Connolly, Kelly Maccdonald, and especially Emma Thompson. Most important, it has a twist half-way through that takes it in a delightfully unexpected direction. I will admit, for the first half I was a bit under-whelmed, The film seemed more Disney than Pixar, with 'safe' humor and ideas. Just a touch disappointingly predictable. But then a witch gets involved in this medieval Scottish tale, and with a twist that's more Shakespearian comedy than Disney, suddenly this is a new film we haven't seen before. The second half easily won me back over, and I was left feeling, as I always seemed to be, that working for Pixar must be about the greatest job in movies.