Brave: Pixar's Latest, but Not the Greatest

Pixar has a wonderful track record when it comes to creating quality animated films. Toy Story (1, 2, and 3), Wall-E, Up, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille are examples of Pixar at its best, at least as far as I'm concerned. Quite a few people would probably disagree with me on the last of that list because of a natural aversion to rats, but I still find it among the greatest of Pixar's endeavors simply due to their accomplishment in creating a sympathetic rat who wants to be a chef. However, Pixar isn't perfect. Even so, when the films aren't great, they are generally pretty good. Their latest creation, Brave, falls into the "good" category.

The story follows Merida as she rebels against tradition and her mother, Elinor. Elinor attempts to transform her daughter into a well-mannered, marriageable young lady. The problem lies in Merida's refusal to play by her mother's rules. She just wants to ride out into nature, practice her archery, and delay marriage for as long as possible. Of course, this leads both women on a path that will challenge their relationship.

After an intense argument with her mother, Merida rides out into the forest and meets a witch/woodcarver (one of many humorous scenes), who provides the perfect opportunity to changer her fate. Now, this sounds all good to Merida, but the resulting spell transforms her mother into a bear.

This is not necessarily a spoiler because the knowledge of the transformation didn't change how much I enjoyed the film. The real surprise is in the wonderful, hilarious, and quite appropriate reaction of Elinor to her situation.

While somewhat inventive, the story and characters didn't really connect with me in quite the same way as Pixar's best films. Most of the characters are mere caricatures, even Merida and Elinor don't offer much depth, but the animation is so well done that a lack of character development can be overlooked.

The true pleasure of the film is in the beauty and great detail of the animation. Scotland is beautifully brought to life in the film. Indeed, the land seems to take on a character of its own. In addition, special mention must be paid to Merida's hair. It's simply fabulous. Also, there is plenty of humor for children and adults alike. Elinor's reaction to finding herself transformed into a bear rings with same kind of physical comedy that made me fall in love with Linguini in Ratatouille.

Despite the lack of well-rounded characters, I must make a special note here: Pixar has a wonderful way of making ever single character distinctive, even the ones that don't have more than a moment or two of screen time. Dreamworks, or any other mainstream animation studio for that matter, has not been able to accomplish this from my experience. Most of the peripheral characters look too similar. 

On another note, there are some scary moments in the film, mostly in the form of a truly terrifying bear, so be mindful of that when taking the little ones. Otherwise, it's well worth the trip and the expense of watching Brave at the theaters.