Brave

Vlad Piranha · Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 11:23 pm Post subject: Brave

For those of you not in the know, Brave is the latest animated film from the Pixar studio and I caught a showing tonight.

The plot centers around a free-spirited Scottish princess named Merida, who chafes at the thought of a life of duty and tradition. Her sour attitude toward her royal obligations only worsens when she comes to the realization that an arranged marriage of sorts is in her near future. Her mother's apparent lack of empathy for her ordeal only amplifies her stubborn resistance to it. In an effort to change her fate, Merida buys the services of an old witch with a knowledege of potions and magic. With the witch's help, she hopes to alter her destiny and finally find lasting freedom. Merida's plan is severly flawed, however, and the consequences of her actions will bring a new sense of humility and perspective.

The movie has an obvious formula to it, but I don't penalize it as heavily for that as more cynical critics might. Pixar is known for its originality, but also has a reputation for being very sentimental and syrupy sweet (after Monsters Inc, that's an opinion I completely agree with). Brave is free of many of those kinds of criticisms due to its focus on a very coherent plot and not deviating from it. Instead of relying on very intentional cuteness to win over the audience, Pixar instead uses pure storytelling to capture the attention of the audience and if it should happen to be cute, all the better. It reminds me quite a bit of the tone to the A Bug's Life. The interesting thing about the overall design of this film is how it takes a successful framework from many of Disney's better efforts and throws a bit of Pixar flavor in there. The result of this recipe isn't a masterpiece, but I'll be damned if it wasn't satisfying and successful at what it was trying to accomplish in terms of entertainment. It's as though Pixar was trying to beat Dreamworks at their own game, but didn't quite surpass their rivals.

One final observation is the quality of the 3D to this film. I constantly hold up Thor and Avatar as the gold standard for 3D excellence as both movies were filmed specifically with 3D cameras and the cinematography made great efforts to utilize that feature. At the other end of the spectrum, you have films like Captain America: The First Avenger, where the 3D was an afterthought and was added after the film was already made, creating a low quality that isn't worth the premium at all. Brave lands comfortably in between. While Brave was rendered in quality 3D that functions properly, I just don't feel that the camera use really took advantage of it and used it in its design as the first examples here did. Real 3D was present, but the film wasn't designed around it, meaning that, without really interesting camera work, it can become mundane quickly and you'll probably forget that you're even seeing it after the first act, hardly a good thing when you're paying at least $10 for a ticket. The bottom line: If you love the perk of 3D when you see a film, it's not half bad here, but I don't think a frugal moviegoer would be missing out by seeing this in 2D.

Overall, Brave is worthy of a solid B in my book and quite easy to recommend to just about anyone.