Pixar’s Brave is a beautifully-rendered tale about a mother and daughter that has a lot of heart, but then takes a few missteps that keep it from achieving true greatness. The kids will love this film due to an overreliance on slapstick comedy. But I’m not a fan, so a lot of the comedy was just a drag to me. Fortunately, the drama is very well done, as is the emotional story between Princess Merida and her mother the Queen. And along with the depth of character, a wonderful visual style, the cornucopia of Scottish accents, and all around skilled craftsmanship, Brave is another fine addition to Pixar’s library.

Unfortunately, what starts out as a pretty great film suddenly veers into absurdism about a third of the way through. But this change is so integral to the story of Brave that the entire experience suffers. I am willing to accept that everybody else may love what happens, but I found it to be incredibly silly.

Movie rating: 4/5: Good!

There will be SPOILERS in my review, so I don’t want to give away what this change is in this opening segment. But it’s just so ridiculous that I think it detracts from the very point of the film. The plot is about Merida and her mother coming to understand one another, but the story of how they get there actually takes away from the overall film. It’s weird. I feel like the people at Pixar should have been able to do a better job in telling the story. I don’t think expecting greatness from Pixar is out of the question. They’re Pixar, for crying out loud! And there are hints at greatness throughout Brave. As if someone, somewhere wrote an amazing mother/daughter story set in ancient Scotland…only for somebody else to come along to throw a bunch of weirdness and slapstick comedy into the mix.

I would expect this kind of thing from Laika Entertainment, but not from Pixar. That link takes you to the trailer for Paranorman, one that the theater aired before Brave. I can’t remember a more pathetic, unfunny, by-the-numbers movie trailer. They wish they were as good as Pixar.

Also, I saw the film (reluctantly) in 3D. It neither adds nor detracts from the overall experience. Another pointless use of the gimmick.

Despite my complaints about the weirdness of the story, Brave is definitely a good movie. Most of the characters, especially Merida, are a lot of fun, the animation is amazing, and it’s got a pretty awesome ending. The villain isn’t very memorable, but then the movie isn’t about him. He’s just there to provide conflict and a violent climax. The real draw is Merida, Pixar’s first female protagonist. Which is kind of weird, now that I think about it, considering how much Disney has banked on their Princesses over the years. Merida is a pretty cool protagonist, and her character growth over the course of the film is great to watch. And her stunning moptop of red hair is just awesome.

What can I say, I’m a big fan of redheads

I swear, the idea for this movie had to have started with animating that red hair and then grew from there.

Brave is the story of Merida (voice by Kelly Macdonald), the princess of a far-off, vaguely Scottish medieval kingdom. She is the firstborn and only daughter of the boisterous King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and the prim & proper Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson). Merida is very much her father’s daughter, with a love of adventure, a wicked sense of humor, and a mastery of archery. (Between this, The Avengers and The Hunger Games, archery has become the go-to form of badassery this year.) But being a tomboy conflicts with her mother’s desire to teach Merida how to be a proper princess, and such creates the growing rift between mother and daughter.

They actually do a fairly good job in creating this conflict. Both characters are treated with respect and are properly fleshed out, with both mother and daughter having legitimate issues. The mother isn’t automatically evil because she wants the arranged marriage. And Merida isn’t automatically righteous in wanting her freedom. The heroine is actually rather spoiled and bratty (thanks to her father). The problem, of course, is communication.

It doesn’t hep that Merida keeps putting her bow on the dinner table

This all comes to a head when Merida reaches marrying age, and her mother has decided to follow tradition and put Merida in an arranged marriage. You see, Fergus’ kingdom is split between four clans, with him in charge of everybody. In order to keep peace between the clans, the Queen wants to marry Merida off to one of the firstborn sons of the other clans. So she arranges a tournament for one of the three oafish sons to prove himself best and win Merida’s hand – but the fiery tomboy has other plans. Merida chooses archery as the contest, and then steps up and smokes them all!

Even while wearing a fancy dress

The clans are mad, the Queen is embarrassed and Merida runs away after a fight with her mother. Out in the forest she finds a witch, and Merida breaks the first rule in the book when it comes to making a wish: asking for something vague. She wants to change her fate of an arranged marriage, but instead she asks for something that will change her mom, thinking that a changed mom will cancel the marriage. So the witch takes her literally – and this is the part that I said was so ridiculous…

The witch turns Queen Elinor into a bear.

A godless killing machine

Why not just have them switch bodies and do a riff on Freaky Friday? Well, other than the obvious reasons.

What appeared to be a cool movie about a mother and daughter learning to communicate with one another suddenly has one of them turned into a big, furry animal that can’t talk. The mother still knows who she is and can act like herself, including walking on her hind legs. But she can’t talk, only growl. It’s just so silly. Suddenly the movie is turned into a slapstick comedy where it’s nothing but the mom/bear running around the castle knocking stuff over. And instead of any kind of real mother and daughter bonding, Merida and the Queen go out into the woods and Merida teachers her mom how to be a bear and catch trout in a stream. Suddenly the movie is no longer about a mother and daughter, and instead it’s Jane of the Jungle and her pet bear. Might as well be the Jungle Book.

Also sometimes the mom thinks she’s a real bear. That comes and goes whenever it’s most convenient to any given scene.

And to make matters worse, King Fargus hates bears after an evil demon bear named Mordue once ate his leg. So rather than Merida telling her father what’s happened, she and her bear mom have to sneak around so that he doesn’t try to kill her – and when he does see the bear, he definitely tries to kill her. Though to be fair, he thinks the bear has actually eaten his wife.

But that’s basically the story. Being a bear allows Queen Elinor to appreciate what an adventurous daughter she has. And seeing the various clans fighting makes Merida realize that she has responsibilities as Princess. Though in the end, the Queen is the one who compromises the most, because she supports Merida’s decision to call off the arranged marriage. In a pretty cool scene, Merida finds the confidence to be leader-like and reminds the various clan leaders of the good old days when they fought wars together, which convinces them to stop feuding. Plus all their oafish sons agree that they don’t want to be in an arranged marriage anyway.

So everybody’s happy!

Relatively speaking – thankfully, these are not the suitors

Like I said, the story of mother and daughter is well-done and entertaining, despite the mother being a bear for most of the movie. They manage to reconcile their differences and love one another in the nick of time so that the spell isn’t permanent. And the ending involves an awesome fight between the bear queen and Mordue. He’s the villain of the film, and also appears to be a victim of the bear-loving witch. But Mordue has no real part in the film. He’s basically just an angry bear who wants to eat people, like bears do. So the ending is cool with bear on bear violence. But the rest of the Queen’s time as a bear is just dumb.

Along with no real villain, there’s also no romantic element, despite the film being about an arranged marriage. The three oafish sons don’t get any characterization beyond their oafishness. None of them would make a good match, and the film doesn’t bother to let us or Merida get to know them very well at all. We know more about their fathers and their rivalry/camaraderie with King Fergus than we do about the three men seeking Merida’s hand. I would have liked for them to get more characterization, but the movie is only so long.

And speaking of wasted characters, there are Merida’s three younger brothers. Wow, did these characters absolutely suck. In my opinion, at least. The kids in the audience thought they were awesome. But what do kids know?

Godless killing machines

These brothers are the worst sort of character. They are essentially the wacky animal sidekicks from cartoon movies of old. They can’t talk, and basically just run around getting into mischief for mischief’s sake. They’re slapstick personified. They have no personal connection with anyone else in their cartoon family. They’re glorified pets. But large portions of the movie are spent just watching them scurry around being obnoxiously slapsticky. At one point they also turn into little bear cubs, but they are so inconsequential to anything that the movie doesn’t even bother explaining how they change back to normal at the end. For the Queen to turn human again, she and Merida had to reconnect. The spell was very specific about that. But for the brothers, it just doesn’t matter. The movie wanted to turn them into bear cubs to up their adorability/slapstick factor.

I hate useless characters who exist only to appeal to the lowest common denominator. These brothers are only in the film to make children giggle, as if kids couldn’t appreciate the actual movie that was taking place. And Pixar is usually better than that.