Interesting movie, but terrible storyline.

Rating: 4/10 (27 April 2014)

To be honest, Brave does everything (almost) right. Good atmosphere, tense animation, and decent world-building in medieval Scotland. To this credit, it's actually miles ahead of that other pile of (insert expletive) Frozen, who once mentions its Norwegian setting, and seems to neglect all possibilities of world-building for its shallow nature.
However, the story is not without flaw, as there is one giant gaping hole--there are no bears in medieval Scotland. I've been to Scotland, beautiful country and all, but there are no bears there. None. Did the creators even think that through? This whole part, when the mother turns into a bear, kills all semblance of the plot. You sit there going "what the hell?" for the remainder of the movie.
And in the beginning, Merida is terribly annoying. Selfish, rebellious from custom, she's almost as unbearable as Belle (more? What the hell does "more" mean?). At least her parents are there to struggle with her complaining, and try to inform her that she's being an idiot (which surprisingly takes her the whole movie to figure out). However, at least she learns her lesson and grows over the course of the movie (at least I think she does, the ending is unclear). That's at least one of the few good things about it.
Another is the setting. Really nice setting they have there, with the characters speaking in Scottish accents and performing Scottish custom. If the movie stayed on that track and evaded the continual Merida complaining, we'd have a more decent movie.
Overall it's a 4/10. Not great by any means, but it's enjoyable enough.