Brave

[Claire of Themyscira]

better than frozen

 

4/10

I'll take that.

[AniNate]

Revisiting this for the first time since theaters, I have to admit the movie has its problems:

 

-A lot of the expositional scenes feel extremely rushed and missing meaningful character beats that would help us to relate to Merida's plight. There probably should've been more development of both Merida and Elinor's perspectives on the central conflict. 

 

-The humor is all over the place. Some of it is quite funny but I suspect Mark Andrews thought random Scottish buffoonery was much funnier than it is to everyone else, and a lot of it was completely inconsequential and could've been replaced by the aforementioned missing character beats without bloating the runtime

 

Those being said, I still got swept up in the moments where the movie indulges Merida's exuberance, and the narrative really improves once it finally settles its focus on her relationship with her mom. The climax is hella intense and the ending is pure, unadulterated feels, which probably contributed to my overenthusiastic original reaction. Whatever the movie's issues, I still think it's a compelling effort from Pixar and one that could only be made by them.

Edited November 5, 2015 by tribefan695

[Blankments]

A remarkably dull affair, La Luna trades charm for a cliche European art style that thinks it's more complex than it actually is. A blah short. C-

 

 

Brave is a rare failure from Pixar. Saddled with an ugly art style, a cliché story, and unlikable characters, it feels like a film from a corporation rather than the usually personal films to come out from the studio. Most attempts at emotion come off as hackneyed, and the overuse of slapstick is most definitely not appreciated. Emma Thompson’s voice acting is the saving grace of the first act of the movie, until her character’s ability to speak is removed for the sake of average character animation. Brave ultimately feels derivative rather than imaginative, and thus, ends up being just a blandly bad movie, leaving one more bored than anything else. Still a disappointment. D-