Brave 2012
I didn’t know much about this movie going in, but I knew it was pretty successful and had just gotten a Golden Globe for best animated feature of 2012 (it would eventually win the Oscar as well). It is by Pixar and Disney, so it should be pretty good. It is kind of interesting that it takes place in Scotland since we’ve already had How To Train Your Dragon, with some of the same voice actors. But while there is magic, there are no dragons in Brave. And while I thought bravery would be a central theme of the movie, it really isn’t. Instead it is about a Scottish princess in the olde days who is upset that her parents are arranging her marriage. One thing I liked is they didn’t make this a romance, which would have been easy since the story is about her being fixed up in a marriage. Also, at some point she has to overcome a major problem involving her mother, and, because it is Pixar, I was really afraid they were going to kill the mother off, like in Finding Nemo or Up where they were going for maximum emotional distress. I don’t feel right giving even this much away, but I am glad they didn’t go that direction. Instead the result is much more along the lines of a Dreamworks movie where things are left fairly light.
However, the main plot is pretty simple, and so they end up with a good bit of filler at the beginning without introducing all that many characters or giving you much of an idea of where the story is going. Beauty and the Beast had a lot more going on than this movie. So I think the end result is a little flat, putting this movie more on the level of Cars than Toy Story.
Written: 02 Feb 2013
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital