Dir: Mark Andrews,
Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell
Starring: Kelly Macdonald,
Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson
Pixar
has become the studio for quality animation, making films for all ages. This
time they travel to Scotland for a tale of magic and legend.
Merida
(Kelly Macdonald) is a Scottish princess who is going to be married off to one
of three potential suitors. Wanting her freedom and taking her life in to her
own hands, Merida breaks tradition and humiliates the suitors and runs off. Meeting
a witch she makes a deal involving her mother which leads to terrible
circumstances.
As is
usual with Pixar, the film looks beautiful. They’ve captured the majestic natural
beauty of the Scottish lands perfectly and Merida’s curly red locks flow and
spring realistically. Pixar have always managed to push the boundaries with
their animation, whether it is the individual strands of hair in the coats of
Sully from Monsters inc. and
Lotsohuggin’ bear in Toy Story 3, or
the twinkling beauty of space in Wall.e, and
they continue here. Pixar should be applauded for choosing a quite unusual
setting for a children’s film and using it so well.
What
makes Pixar so great is that there is always more to their films than just the
beautiful surface, they always have heart. In this case that comes in the
relationship between Merida and her mother Elinor (Emma Thompson). Merida is a
teenage girl who has been raised by her mother to be a lady and to marry for
the good of the country while she is still young but Merida wants to be free
and live her life how she wants. It is good to see the relationship between a
mother and daughter as the core of a film rather than the typical romance of
the male hero and the beautiful heroine. It's this relationship which is at the
front of the film rather than anything to do with the three young suitors. It
is a film about family and learning to love each other. However, the film never
hits the emotional heights of Wall.e
or the incredible first ten minutes of Up.
The
film has jokes for both the youngsters in the audience and their parents but it
is never as funny as some previous Pixar films. Wall.e managed to make us laugh and fall in love with a robot who
barely spoke and Up made us root for
a grumpy pensioner, mining comedy from such tough ingredients, but Brave raises chuckles rather than full
on laughs.
A solid
effort from Pixar which sits in the middle of Pixar’s roster in terms of
quality. Good looking and fun but not enough to stick with you for much longer
afterwards.
3 out of 5 Buttons
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