Hey Guys! Gerawallstar here, and I am here to review Disney PIXARS Brave, which was released in 2012. When Brave was released, it was not only a critical disappointment, but it wasn’t the strongest financially either. In my opinion, this film is so mediocre. This film doesn’t look like a PIXAR film. It looks more like a Disney animated feature.
Story
The story is about a princess named Merida who is tired of the royal life she is expected to live at, so after an argument with her mother, she tries to find a way to make sure her mother will allow her to do what she wants to do. So she tries to feed her mother a pastry that has magical powers, which turns her to a bear. So she must turn her mother back into human before it’s too late. Thile story did have a lot going for. There was a lot of potential for this film to be good. I loved the beginning of the scenes with Merida and her mother bonding, I loved how it handles a realistic but decently well mother and daughter relationship with the conflict being surrounded by Merida and her mother arguing about which life Merida has to fulfill. While yes it is annoying, I think that their argument was handled very strongly. The scene where Merida accidentally transforms her mother into a bear with the magic pastry is unfortunately when the story went downhill. The middle half is just boring and forgettable. What’s even worse is that the trailers that showed us potential for a great story barely even mentioned Meridas mother as a bear. That is what really pissed me off about the story. Its ripping off Brother Bear, and the entire 2nd half is just Merida trying to get her mother back into human while also preventing bad things from happening to her mother. The scene where the three boys are the entire potion, and then also being transformed into Cubs was just randomly shown, and very pointless. While the story did had a potentially good start, the 2nd half is just dull and predictable. I give the story 5 stars.
Animation
The saving grace of the movie is the animation. The animation is phenomenal. PIXAR has done it again with the amazing visuals. Unlike Cars 2 where the animation, while good, was expected from the studio, I was jaw dropped by the animation. The backgrounds are gorgeous, the design of Scotland looks beautiful where it felt like I wanted to be there, and the effects such as the Wisps look great. I honestly don’t have any flaws with the animation. I think that the animation for Brave is wonderful, and groundbreaking. I give the animation ten stars.
Characters
With the amazing animation that PIXAR had done, the characters are sadly the opposite of amazing. The characters in this film are not good at all. I couldn’t stand most of the characters. Let’s start with Merida. With the trailers that promised us to have an independent and groundbreaking Disney princess, they presented us with anything but. While Merida does have some good aspects such as being athletic with her playing archery, and being free-spirited, she suffers from being a ripoff of Ariel from The Little Mermaid by having the princess cliches such as arguing with her parents, going to a stranger to throw her life away, and causing trouble with her parents. Merida is nothing but a forgettable Disney Princess. Queen Elinor is not that great. She does start off good because of her daughter and her relationship but once she was transformed into a bear, she lost all my interest. King Fergus is allright. He does have some funny moments, even though he is not that memorable. The three brothers Harris, Hubert and Hamish are all very annoying and obnoxious. The films tries way too hard to make them cute. I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work for a film like this. The other characters are forgottable. The characters while have some decent potential, resulted in them being dull. I give the characters four stars.
Verdict:
Overall, Brave is a mediocre first attempt for a princess film from PIXAR. While the first half was good, and the animation being the highlight, the 2nd half, and the rest of the characters ended up being very bland and forgettable. I wouldn’t recommend this film at all.
5/10.
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