Not a review, just some thoughts. Also, COMPLETE and UTTER SPOILERS for the movie. You have been warned.
The Very Good (believe me, it's still a very good movie)
- Visuals: wait a minute. The next Pixar movie is a fairytale? Set in mythical Scotland?! This is all kinds of awesome. A feast for the eyes, like it should be. Immaculately detailed, dripping with atmosphere, the world of Brave is an incredible place to spend an hour and a half. Oh, and the characters look great too - in fact, the contrast between highly detailed nature and cartoonish characters sometimes evokes that old hand-drawn feel; painterly backdrops combined with simple, fluid drawings. Nice.
- The Opening Short: it might seem a bit twee if you think about it too much but in my opinion La Luna was beautiful in its own way. The characters are subtle and funny, there's a "sweet dreams" kind of a twist, this was a great way to open.
- The Music: big thanks to Patrick Doyle. As opposed to How To Train Your Dragon in 2010, this is a flick that deserves Scottish music because it is actually set in Scotland. And it is just as good here, if not better. There may not be as many memorable themes, but without Mr Doyle's score, the ambience would only make it half way.
- The Flashes of Brilliance: a few scenes in Brave stand high above the rest, including the dramatic argument between Merida, Elinor and a harmless tapestry. Another of these is where we meet the best part of the story:
- The Witc- the Woodcarver: wow. Animators and Julie Walters, you spoiled us. The wisps that led Merida to the cottage, the magic-potion answering machine, her insistent terminology and rapid-fire delivery - everything about this dark character was fantastic. It didn't hurt that she looked right out of a Studio Ghibli movie (see Captain Dola, Grandma Sophie). There even seemed to be a nod towards Howl's Moving Castle with the cottage door leading to two different places. There's only one downside to the witc- sorry, woodcarver's part in the story, and that is that there wasn't enough! I'm sitting here rambling about Brave and all I'm thinking about is I want a buddy movie with the woodcarver and her crow. But of course, an entire story with this character would defeat the purpose. She's a one-scene wonder in this film, all it needs is a little more... wrapping up.
The Kinda Bad
- Mending a torn rift blah-blah: okay so this was going to be a pun about ripping up the movie and repairing the bonds etcetera, but I can't remember the witch's riddle that I was referencing. Point is, there are parts of the story that feel like the script started out a lot longer and they had to cut it down to fit into Pixar's almost traditional 90-100 minute runtime. Here's a few examples:
- The King and the other clans: there were several short scenes that tried to develop these characters as a counterpoint to the more tight-knit struggles of Merida and the Queen. However, we don't see much more than clichéd posturing. Woohoo, the King's funny, right, because he's a bad public speaker? Yeah, that Dingwall guy is short, so he's got a temper, you know? There could be a war, because all these guys are different, they don't get along... sigh. No connection can be made to these characters apart from the comedy angle.
- Mor'du: the "villain" of the piece, a demonic bear created from a jealous son. Perhaps as a result of the King and practically every other character besides the two central ones being sidelined, Mor'du doesn't feel particularly affecting either. He and Merida use the same spell but beyond that he's not really in the movie at all. He provides a plot reason for the King to hate bears, he embodies Merida's rebellion against tradition, but it's all so slight and disconnected. Maybe if more had been done to tell his tale his, for want of a better word, "absolution" at the end wouldn't have seemed so out of place and pointless. Here's a cliché that no one would have faulted them for: have the Queen telling Merida his story not during an argument, but during her childhood at the beginning of the film, before getting her birthday bow. Then Merida could have questioned why tradition was so important, giving the Queen a reason for the chessboard demonstration. But a bigger elephant in the room: in a movie that's about a mother-daughter relationship, why is the cautionary tale about a typical jealous son in the first place? Surely this is the antagonist of the King's story, not of Merida's (whose antagonist is more likely the witch or herself).
- Landscape: for a story set in an ancient and rugged country filled to the brim with mystery and adventure, Brave's physical world feels limited. I don't know if this is something that began with the script or was enforced by editing, but the apparent scope is that of a castle, a nearby forest and some rocks on the other side. Without a sense of scale, scenes of Merida riding her horse through the woods are just more chances to ogle the fantastic scenery. This is a similar issue to what Tangled suffered over a year ago - short on story plus short on scope just makes the movie feel small.
- The ending: again, this is tied in with the other points but the ending is where it stings the most. Not only does the wisp image of the jealous son seem a bit pointless (would it have lost anything if we just didn't see him?) but there is little to no focus on the big changes going on around Merida and Elinor. The reconciliation of the clans, the "marry-who-you-like" agreement, these are things that should have stood in reflection to the personal reconciliation between mother and daughter. Instead they're glanced over as they sail away, hopefully into a slightly longer, better paced Pixar fairytale. Finally, could it really have hurt to show us a few more seconds of the witch and her crow?
- Emotional Journey: this is possibly the hardest of the bad points to articulate, but here I go. Much has been made about how this is the first Pixar movie with a female protagonist, and I say you can't fault their good intentions. As clever and ground-breaking as the previous Pixar movies have been, with few exceptions they've stayed within the spectrum of boy's own adventure and male relationships - father and son, surrogate fathers and son, surrogate grandfather and son, you get the picture. In that case, it's nice to see them branch out in Brave. However, the trademark emotional resonance that Pixar is known for doesn't seem to make it in. Apart from the above-mentioned argument scene and their eventual reconciliation, Merida and Elinor's relationship is downplayed to make room for slapstick antics. Let's not forget as well, the unwanted implications that all of their problems are solved when the mother is rendered unable to speak to either her daughter or her husband by being turned into a bear. If the message is that they should listen to one another, it's a rather one-sided victory. Compare this to Finding Nemo, where father and son together realise how much they need each other after complete separation for most of the movie.
The "Uh-oh"
- This is the big one. Brave is a very good (if cut-down) film, but it's the first Pixar film that disappointed me. The reason that Brave is so disappointing is that, until now, the creative team at Pixar have been able to deftly mix humour, love, a touch of fear, and of course, great visuals into a cohesive whole (with the possible exception of the just-for-fun Cars series). Brave is not one of those - its story is good but unoriginal, the slapstick seems to take precedent over the drama, and the scary scenes are very scary with little relief. Any one of these problems could be blended into a good movie on its own and come out great: a simple family adventure, an animated comedy or a darker, more mature story respectively. Having them all in the one movie though feels a bit disjointed.
- For these reasons, it is worthwhile hoping that Brave is simply a slump and not a sign for the future: because if it is, even though it is not a bad film... uh-oh.
