When her mother tries to punish her by throwing her bow into the fireplace, Merida rides off into the woods in a temper. Like a pint-sized Katniss Everdeen, she enters the games herself and wins with her archery prowess.
"I don't want my life to be over," Merida tells her mother. To their credit, the filmmakers don't dance around the cruelty of bartering off an adolescent girl in an arranged marriage. Also, for boys, Merida is cursed with a trio of identical-triplet brothers who all look as though they will grow up to be Sid, the toy torturer from the first Toy Story movie. While waiting to see which man will win Merida's hand, the clan members squabble and fight at the drop of a hat this prompts Merida and her mother to roll their eyes in exasperation, which may be response of anyone in the audience who isn't a boy under 10. That leads to the Highland games, where a trio of dopey young men are offered up as potential husbands. Her mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), is prim and critical, and would prefer that Merida spend her time in ladylike pursuits rather than practicing her archery and galloping about on her horse, Angus.Īll this comes to a head when Merida reaches adolescence and is expected to wed to maintain order among the potentially warring clans. Her father, King Fergus (Billy Connolly), is a happy-go-lucky lug who dines out on stories of the bear that once dined out on his leg. The owner of the hair is named Merida, and she's vivaciously voiced by Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald ( Trainspotting, Boardwalk Empire). No fault here goes to the heroine herself, a spritely medieval princess with a superb waterfall of unruly red curls which spill about her cheeks and down past her shoulders. What we get would be fine from another studio, but too safe and familiar for Pixar.
It's a bit overstuffed with narrative incidents, occasionally wearying in its slapstick, and dependent on a too-convenient magical plot turn. Beyond the usual visual lustre of the castles, crags and Scottish highlands, and first-rate vocal performances, Brave feels like a merely good-enough children's movie. Now comes Brave, the company's 13th feature film, and first with a female lead. In 2010, Pixar, now under the aegis of Disney, saw its weakest release to date, the mediocre Cars 2, which was never justified as much more than a merchandise grab. The glow has faded from the once peerless Pixar franchise that brought us Toy Story, The Incredibles, Up, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and pretty much everything from the DVD top shelf of kids' movie entertainment over the past 17 years.
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