Pixar lost a bit its essence and idiosyncrasy when was engulfed by Disney. Since then, every second Pixar movie we get a real Pixar movie in conception, ideas and originality. The in-between years are for movies like Brave, which follow a template with structured predefined characters, values and jokes that are very much modern Disney.
Brave's animation is amazing from a visual point of view: the colours, layouts, backgrounds, the rendering of the landscapes and characters movement, the camera angling, the 3D design and even the movement of Merida's hair are spectacular. Still, a good animation movie needs of a good script with a sound story and narrative to be successful: what it tells and how it tells it are always more important than how it looks like.
Brave's script -by Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman and Irene Mecchi- is, a priory, a winner. It mixes many European folk legends and human archetypes (like the ones we see in Anderson or the Grimm Brothers' tales) with modern attitudes and sensibilities. Moreover, Merida is in a way, a combination of all old Disney's heroines.
The film is entertaining and beautiful to watch, and some of the characters are very funny. There are many funny moments especially those involving the witch, Merida's triplet brothers, and the lady bear.
All the cast of actors do a good job at dubbing their respective characters: Kelly Macdonald as Merida, Billy Connolly as Merida's father, Emma Thompson as her mother, and Julie Walters as the Witch. To be fair, Billy Connolly's dubbing always sounds like himself not as the character he plays.
Still, Brave does not deliver beyond the artistic qualities of the animation, because the story sends contradictory messages. It feels as if the writing team had done bit and pieces separately, and then stitched them together without further adjustment and polishing. Being so, the movie can be labelled, depending on the moment, as feminist, sexist, retrograde, modern, advanced or conservative. Two main messages are sent to the world. 1/ "Obey your mother". That can be a revolutionary message in a world in which children are spoiled-rotten and disrespect their parents. However, going from there to deciding that everything mammy says is good for your future and that the tradition has to be respected no matter how senseless it is, it is a bit reactionary. 2/ On the other hand, the story tells us that you can be brave and daring, but until certain point - bravery is subversive, and subversion is not good. What?! Be brave and make your own fate, free will do exist, but fate is fateful and will crash you if you subvert the status-quo. What! What? What?!
Too much is always too much. Brave is a beautiful senseless sermon that gets lost in its own wordiness and senseless preaching. It is perfect for small children, as it has lots of action and some funny moments that the little ones (and your inner child) will enjoy. More sounded boys and girls, our just your sound self, could get a bit puzzled at the moral of the story and the wordy ending.
