Brave Review

Plot Summary:
Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is very determined to make her own path in life. Granted one wish by a witch (Julie Walters), Merida must rely on her archery skills and bravery to destroy a beastly curse that will ultimately change her fate.

The Positives:
Pixar is one of my personal favorite studios in the industry right now. Each movie they come out with is technically brilliant, original, and very well-made. That all changed last year when the studio released Cars 2, which became the studio's lowest point. While Brave is not Pixar's best film, it is easily an improvement over Cars 2.

I will start with the visuals of this film. The landscape of the world in this film looks all so beautiful, making this Pixar's best technical achievement currently. The look of the trees, water, animals, and the hair of the humans looked very realistic for an animated film, which is an achievement for this studio. The visuals get consistently better with each film they release.

I thought the voice cast was great for this film as well. Kelly Macdonald was a great Merida, her voice fit the character's spunky and tomboyish attitude. I also really enjoyed Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Craig Ferguson, and Robbie Coltrane in their respective roles. The Scottish accents sound weird at first, but as the film goes on you get used to them no problem.

For the most part I found this film to be entertaining. Unlike Cars 2, this film has a lot of entertaining moments that adults can enjoy as well. I thought the three little kids stole the show here, they were the main comic relief here. The film is not very long either, so it didn't overstay its welcome or bore the audience.

The Negatives:
Even though it's better than Cars 2, I had a lot of issues with Brave. The source of the problems with this film is the script. It had too many plotholes, cliche dialogue, and for the most part it felt like a typical film rather than going above and beyond. Pixar is known for having really well-written scripts, I wonder why this one felt so uneven.

I also felt the action scenes in the film were very disappointing. Although there weren't many, I thought they ended too quickly and were ultimately lame. The climatic fight at the end was extremely disappointing too, it ended too stupidly and I felt it could have been worked on a lot more.

The main issue with this film was the characters. Pixar is known for having characters with distinct personalities that you can easily fall for. Brave had none of that. I could care less about Merida and her problems, unlike Carl in Up who you could easily fall for in the first 10 minutes even though he's a grumpy old man. They also set up characters and subplots here that aren't mentioned later in the film, which is a huge problem for a film.

Conclusion:
While it is an improvement over Cars 2, I felt a little disappointed by Brave. Sure, the animation, voice cast, and entertainment value are great. However, the story and characters are weak, which is something I would not expect from a Pixar film. In the end, Brave is an ok film, one that kids will enjoy. However, this should have been much better.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10