The following review is spoiler free and is
meant to be read BEFORE seeing the movie.
Brave
is a good movie because it made me care. And despite whatever reservations and
quibbles I have, Brave still made me care what would happen to whom throughout
its runtime, and I am grateful. Merida is a daughter of nobility whose passion
is archery. Yet she is told that she must put away such boyish endeavors and
live life like a proper princess and marry somebody from another noble house
and blah blah blah. This story has been done to death. I won’t say that Brave
breathes new life into this story, but I will say that Merida’s
characterization is what kept me going. She isn’t sidetracked by an unnecessary
love story, and she learns lessons unrelated to love and courtship. Now that is
refreshing!
One of
my major concerns is that once again PIXAR takes a first half full of promise
and then lets it descend into something generic. Even though the premise of
Brave is certainly uninspired, the setup is at least handled deftly and told
from an interesting point of view. And yet, with the half-way plot twist, Brave
shifts focus from a strict character drama into a generic kid’s movie. I won’t
say that the second half wasn’t handled well, but I will say that for once I
wish a PIXAR movie had the guts to stick with where it was going in its first half
and tell a strictly character-based drama.
Each
PIXAR movie starts off like an indie film, but ends like a blockbuster. And
while that trick works out for movies like The Incredibles or Wall•E, it
doesn’t work here. In those movies, the shift feels organic at the least. Here,
I was certainly surprised at the plot twist and thought to myself, “I didn’t
see that coming!” But then I realized, “now I know where this is going.
Still,
it is an enjoyable movie and worth a viewing.
Rating:
«««
(3/4)
That twist in the middle of the flick just totally bothered me and I couldn't get past it. Still, I enjoyed this flick, I just think that Pixar dropped the ball on what could have been amazing. Good review.
ReplyDeleteI thought the twist was unexpected and I didn't see it coming. But once it happened I saw where the whole rest of the movie was going...
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