Brave (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

'Nice' can sometimes be a surprisingly divisive word. For some people it's the epitome of average, only a shade better than okay or 'meh'. For me I don't know if it's just my 'Englishness' but it can sometimes feel like relatively high praise. I think it's quite telling though that I keep wanting to use it to describe Brave.

Whatever I think of the finished product, it feels like the trailers for Brave had done their best to convince me that it would be terrible before I'd even seen it. They seemed to suggest something on the level of an average Dreamworks film, full of dumb jokes and body humour, not to mention the potential for terrible scottish stereotypes. It didn't seem at all like a typical Pixar film (maybe discounting the Cars films, as I haven't seen any of those). As it turns out though, these trailers at least kept most of the plot secret, with me only figuring out some of it beforehand due to seeing certain toy lines in the Disney store...

The overt 'Scottishness' from the trailers did look like it would be more along the lines of how Americans view Scotland but I didn't find it too bad in the end. While Scotland is never explicitly mentioned, it is clearly set there and not some mythical equivalent as a map in it names the Isle of Skye. Some of the phrases felt a little more English and there was a distinct lack of Scottish slang but for the most part it felt fairly natural. Even if it would probably be more Scottish to say "Wheesht!", it still felt quite rare to hear someone say "Shut your gob" for example, which gave it a nice homely sort of feeling.

There was one character with an exceptionally thick accent, which you aren't meant to understand but it amused me all the same. Especially when one line is finished with "ken?", which reminded me of my days as an Englishman in Scotland. It was always those with the hardest accents to follow who would finish their sentences with "ken?" ("do you know what I mean/understand?") and I'd just nod my head hopefully. I'm not sure if this accent can be placed to a specific location, I'd be interested to find out and to hear from any native Scotsmen what they thought of it as a whole.

While most of the story is not particularly surprising, I have to give it props for being a major film that focuses around a mother and daughters relationship. I was expecting it to be yet another 'tomboy wants to prove herself and goes off on adventures with the men' kind of thing so it was a pleasant surprise how it unfolds. Most of the other characters are fairly under-developed but making the mother/daughter relationship the focus meant that this didn't stand out. I would say overall it felt like quite a short film and I'm not sure if that is a negative issue or just means that it was to the point.

The ending did feel a little contrived to me though, like it was just playing for time to make it seem more emotional. I honestly thought there was going to be more to it but then it suddenly shifts to happy ending mode. It reminded me of a couple of other films with a sudden happy ending, Tangled and Wall-E, the latter being one I watched again recently. Tangled at least gave a plausible reason for how it turned things around but Wall-E feels like it switches from an impossible situation to make it momentarily seem more sad. It's perhaps a different topic to get into on whether Pixar/Disney films can have anything other than a happy ending though.

Overall I would say that it's worth watching and should keep you entertained, unless you have a very high brow sense of humour. I saw it in quite a mixed audience and apart from one or two jump scares that might set kids off, I think it will appeal to everyone. It's not one of Pixars best and I would also say that it isn't as good as Tangled or the best of Dreamworks in How to Train Your Dragon but still better than virtually anything else from that studio. I'm not sure how long it will stick with me or how well it would stand up to repeated viewings but I still think it's a nice film - just a shame that it's unlikely to reach the dizzying heights of appreciation I have for other Pixar films.