In 1066 Scotland, a young princess, Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald – most folks will recognize her as Mel Gibson’s “wife” in Braveheart, and as the object of Colin Firths affection – Evangeline – in Nanny McPhee) strives to remain an independent free spirit in the masculine clan she is born into. ![]() I’m going to show you just where you can stick your caber toss, pal! So how does Brave, the first Pixar film to feature a female lead as the primary protagonist, fare as a stand-alone film, and up against its studio brethren? We’ve come to expect a lot from Pixar, and no matter how they try and hold the gold standard for everyone else, inevitably they were bound to fall back to the pack eventually. Loving glances at my DVD copy of Finding Nemo aside, the studio seems to have been in a creative lull since Cars 2 – notably, the first sequel since Toy Story 2, and the first which really lacked punch with critics around the world – although if you compare even their most average features against the best of the rest, Pixar still remain a force to be reckoned with. If you look at Pixar from a purely fishbowl perspective, it was always going to happen that eventually, each yearly released film was never going to stack up against the four or five major releases which catapulted the studio to the top of the animation heap. Where previous feature films were trumpeted as Cinema Classics in their own right, almost always from the first frame, recent releases have met with a resounding “meh” from the vast majority of critics, most of whom seem wistful for the glory days when Toy Story 2 revolutionized animation and became a serious contender come Oscar time. One might reasonably assume that the Golden Age of Pixar has now passed us by. No, it’ll lack the classic status of past Pixar alumni, and I doubt the re-watch factor is going to be as high as, say, Toy Story 3, but Brave rises above most of the dreck from Hollywood’s stable of stars to deliver a rousing, magical, often scary – and yet flawed – animated feature that just doesn’t quite cut it by comparison. There’s a sense of unoriginal motivation within the framework of the narrative, and a couple of the plot points can be seen coming from a mile away (which is a sad day for Pixar, who’re usually so clever at this kind of thing) but as a film, it’s still exceptionally magnificent. What we think : Brave lacks the classic Pixar touch – it’s nowhere near as memorable as Monsters Inc or Toy Story, for example – but is an entertaining film in its own right. ![]() ![]() Synopsis: A young Scottish princess rebels against her mothers wish to have her choose a suitable suitor for marriage from three fellow clans – the pair butt heads, inevitably leading to a clash of wills that will have consequences for them both. Principal Cast : Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd, Craig Ferguson, Sally Kinghorn, Julie Walters, Steve Purcell.
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