Brave

Brave is this year's summer Pixar offering that tells the tale of young Merida, a fiercely independent and self-assured Scottish princess, trying to remain just that as her mother pressures her to behave in a more lady-like manner and to get married. Or so I was lead to believe.

As it turned out, Merida (Kelly Macdonald), is not much more than a whiny, entitled child for the first half of the film, living in the absolute lap of luxury with her three irritating brothers, gargantuan father (Billy Connolly) and fussing mother (Emma Thompson) who is insisting she conform to tradition and choose a suitor to wed. This instantly soured the character to me; why should I feel for a young princess who never wants for anything, being asked to conform to the traditions of her family and culture? I could go into the political and social ramifications of the rise and fall in popularity of arranged marriages versus marrying for love, but this is a Pixar film, so I shan't.

So the initial setting and exposition failed to impress me, put me off the main character and generally dissolved any remaining hope I had for enjoying the next 70-or-so minutes. The second act failed to change my opinion much. There's a witch (Julie Walters) and some shape shifting, resulting in a bit of slap-stick comedy and what could be considered the 'crisis' section of this by-the-numbers plot.

During the scenes with the witch, I couldn't help but continue to dislike Merida. All her dialogue is focused on how she's not to blame for her poor relationship with her mother, and that if only her mother would change then everything would be OK etc.without a single thought regarding her own behaviour and whether or not she should change herself as well. As  Merida  implements her spell, the complete lack of sympathy for her mother's quite obvious pain was rather jarring.  Merida seemed more excited than concerned, right up until the spell had run its course, and then all her excitement turned into fear, not for her mother, but for herself. Distinct lack of caring for her own mother. As I said, jarring.

Thankfully, we see a clear change in Merida's character as she moves from the whiny child to a more responsible young adult after some time spent in the forest (a very folky mechanic/metaphor for change). Here she becomes a far more likable character, showing compassion, humour and caring instead of the rebellious tantrums we've seen so far.

Eventually, Merida figures out how to undo the spell and return things to normal, and so we move into the third act. Here there were a few scenes that I feel were attempting humour, but never quite hit the mark. Exaggerating people's features or highlighting one character trait for comic effect only goes so far, and what were supposed to be the few non-visual gags failed to entertain.

After some rather poor and predictable action scenes and reveals the film comes to a close with the ubiquitous message that love conquers all. A poor end to a mediocre film.

Overall, a mostly dislikeable protagonist, a bland and under-used supporting cast (didn't even spot Robbie Coltrane or Kevin McKidd), a predictable plot, poor-to-none on the action front and a very thin resolution. I don't really recommend this film to anyone over the age of about 12, as it has very little appeal beyond the surface story, which is naturally aimed more at the younger audience members.

So let's talk about Brave without talking about the story it tells.

The Production

First of all, the scandal with the directors. Brenda Chapman (Prince of Egypt, Beauty & The Beast) was set to be the first female director of a Pixar film, but during production Mark Andrews (John Carter) and Steve Purcell (a helluva lot of Sam & Max stuff) were attached to the project as well. Chapman promptly left, though she still receives a Director credit. 

Secondly, with five writers, Chapman, Andrews, Purcell, Irene Mecchi and Michael Arndt, all trying to not only share the responsibilities of directing but also trying to work together (when they're not walking off the project or being replaced) to carve out a script between them, there were bound to be issues - big and small - leading to a chimera of a story. Despite some of these writers having worked on great titles such as The Lion King, Fantasia 2000, Hercules and Toy Story 3 it does show, what with there being a very under-developed sub-plot revolving around Meredith's father and a bear, basically no secondary characters to speak of besides the other clan leaders who don't really feature enough to be interesting and a very limited number of locations (I counted five in the entire film).

As a result of such a maelstrom of directing and writing the finished product only features 14 voice actors. Compare that to Toy Story's 37, or Finding Nemo's 24. There are only 7 proper speaking roles, despite the film being set in a huge castle and featuring a few scenes with large crowds of people. Pixar usually does 'background entertainment' very well, utilising larger scenes completely by including interesting characters or events whilst the foreground focuses on the more important characters. Think of all the toys in each of the Toy Story films, most of them get very little screen time - especially those in Toy Story 3. The more important minor roles, such as Crush and Squirt in Finding Nemo or the Aliens and Army Men in Toy Story, also really helped to flesh out the world, whereas in Brave, even the obligatory John Ratzenburger role was minute and easily missed. I feel this is just an indication of a rushed, chopped-and-glued script that left next to no time for anything other than the main plot to be developed, resulting in a rather dry and perfunctory attempt at a film.

The 'Feminism'

There was a rather large hoo-har about Merida being the first female protagonist in a Pixar film. Think back, there really hasn't been one. Not in the Cars series, Toy Stories, Nemo, Up, WALL-E, every single one was male (or a robot). And now we have a fiery-haired Scottish princess heading up the story in Brave. Only, she's not exactly a great role-model.

With Merida, Pixar had the opportunity to sculpt a believable female role model to contrast the Disney princesses we're all too familiar with. What they have ended up creating is a character who enjoys all things tomboyish. There is not a thing wrong with girls enjoying horse riding, archery, rock climbing and other such activities deemed 'unladylike' by Brave.

However, when you contrast that with the incessant nagging of Merida's mother, who is trying to turn her daughter into a 'proper lady,' you have a clear gender divide between the more female pursuit of marrying a man and the more male pursuit of sportsmanship and such. This is such a black-and-white contrast that it backfires horribly. Where there could've been a respectable, strong young girl who just wants to do her own thing instead of being shackled to a man we're presented with a strong young girl who wants to be a boy.

When presented with the suitors, Merida is initially completely uninterested in them. That is, until a rather gorgeous looking gentleman is presented to her, at the sight of whom her jaw drops open. Another example of this film just missing the mark. Had she remained uninterested then I would've believed she really did have a problem with marriage. As it turns out, she just has a problem being married to ugly men.

I really couldn't believe this. I was skeptical that Merida was going to do to Pixar films what Ripley did to action films, but to see the finished product really disheartened me. It would appear that only Joss Whedon can write female characters that are not only relatable, realistic and deep but also entertaining to watch.