Brave (2012) review

(9/10)

I didn't expect this to be as good as it really was. Pixar has caught back up with themselves with this film, for it's fantastic, emotional journey through family and fantasy.

PLOT:Young Merida (Kelly MacDonald) is a princess in her clan in Scotland. She hasn't really followed tradition completely, however, and acts more like her father, King Fergus (Billy Connolly), instead of her saintly mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson). Merida likes to ride her horse out into the wilderness and shoot her bow. However, things are about to change thanks to the Queen, for the time has come around for Merida's betrothal date, and she must decide out of a competition which son of the three other clans to choose. Merida doesn't want to get married yet and just wants to be free, but her mother won't understand her. So, Merida stands up for herself and runs away, meeting an woodcarving witch along the way, who gives Merida a cake with a spell to make her mother change. The bad thing is that Merida's mother changes in a different and more fatal way than she imagined. It's a great plot executed brilliantly.



VOICES:The voice acting for this film is really, really good. Everyone has to enhance their usual voices by speaking in a Scottish accent, which is hard to do sometimes. The best performance has to go to Kelly MacDonald as Merida, for her voice acting as the main character took the show just as it should have. Billy Connolly and Emma Thompson also did a really good job as King Fergus and Queen Elinor.  The other shiners would be Julie Walters as the wise woman, Robbie Coltrane as Lord Dingwall, and Craig Ferguson as Lord Macintosh.

SCORE:The score in here was also very good. It was done in a Celtic mood to match the Scottish mood of the film with a very contagious couple of songs from Julie Fowlis.

ANIMATION:The animation in here was one of the best aspects of the film itself. This is one thing Pixar has never faltered at in any of their recent films. The animation in here is greatly detailed and very well done. I was impressed, as usual, with the lifelike quality of the animation.



OTHER CONTENT:This film was a really good one. Unlike Pixar's last attempt to move on without Steve Jobs leading (Cars 2), this film actually hit the mark and earned its Oscar for Best Animated Film of 2013 very well. This takes a simple idea for a fairy tale, adds a twist or two, and comes out with an emotional masterpiece with beautiful visuals and a fun trip for the whole family. The jokes and humor, however, seem to fall flat on their face sometimes and seem very directed to the younger age. It picks up near the middle though, when the main twist occurs. I always believed that Pixar never lost its charm, and now I know that it hasn't.

OVERALL,an awesome Pixar film with a great plot, really good voice acting, very good Celtic score, beautiful and detailed animation, and a charming and emotional trip for the family, but some of the humor falters a bit until the middle.