Movie Review: Brave

Chalk this one up on the “Movies I Probably Don’t Need to Review for You, But Am Going to Review Anyway” list. For one thing, you’ve probably already seen it, and for another, it’s Pixar, which almost always means a great movie. Then again, I’ve been beginning to see people take Pixar for granted, almost passing off each fantastic movie as a “meh,” because that’s what we’ve come to expect from Pixar.

Case in point? I waited to watch Brave until it was out on Bluray. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to see it, but I just . . . never got around to it. And so here we are.

The movie was fantastic for a number of reasons.

• It’s a film featuring a female lead, where her goal isn’t to marry Prince Charming. She wants to be independent, and she follows through on that desire.
• It’s not predictable. Halfway through, I was loving the movie, but there were a few hints that maybe they were veering off into “You Can See This Coming” territory, as Disney movies have been wont to do over the years. Thankfully, they veered off and avoided the cliche.
• The Scottish imagery and themes throughout the movie work very well. That said, I don’t know much about Scottish imagery and themes. So . . . it felt Scottish to me, but for all I know, it was playing to stereotypes.
• It was genuinely funny. So often, I hear the argument that boys won’t watch girls movies. TRC and DC both loved the movie. TRC didn’t care it was a girl doing the awesome things, just like DC doesn’t care when it’s a boy doing the awesome things. It helped, of course, that there was a lot of funny stuff in the whole thing. Who doesn’t love funny?
• Great mother/daughter storyline. Sort of Lion King-esque. But again, that’s me interpreting there. I have no idea how that plays to actual mothers and daughters.
• Visually stunning–Pixar manages to keep outdoing itself, time after time.
• Great soundtrack. Patrick Doyle did a wonderful job.