The film opens with a very young Merida, our tomboyish hero, playing hide and seek with her mother (Emma Thompson) while her father, the king (Billy Connolly), looks on. Shortly after recieving her birthday present, a bow, they are attacked by a large bear. Cutting to years later, Merida and her mother can now barely stand each other and her father is missing a leg from their encounter with the bear. Merida spends every spare moment she has practicing archery in the forest, when she doesn't have to practice being a proper, passive princess with her mother. Upon Merida finding out she is to be betrothed very soon (she isn't told until the suitors are practically on their doorstop), her contentious relationship with her mother comes to head. So, naturally, she encounters a witch and accidentally gets her mother turned into a bear, she gets a deadline to reverse the spell, and mother/daughter bonding ensues.
Firstly, I have to say, the animation is up to the usual high standards Pixar sets, though just about every other animation studio now active is up to those same high standards. The Scottish landscapes, in particular, are quite beautiful and detailed. The characters are expressive and fairly realistic looking, but some of the designs are distorted enough to provide a more wacky feel at times. The animation in the action-oriented sequences is very fluid, while not scrimping on the level of detail to be found in the landscapes.
The story, however, is extremely slight and seems like a first, and nowhere near a final, draft. The main problem with the script is that none of the characters are, well, likable: Merida is a spoiled brat, her mother is a tyrannical shrew, and her father (a king no less) is essentially a non-factor in her life aside from approving of her archery. Other issues with the film include no true villain, except for a bear with a way too convenient connection to the main plot, and a vague, poorly defined system of magic that doesn't seem to be a part of the universe at all aside from being a plot contrivance once or twice per act. The moral of the story, parents and children should talk to, not at, each other, is solid but the means of getting to that point are illogical. Merida and her mother both seemingly cave from their previous positions out of guilt, not understanding, when neither has been given a proper reason to do so.
The voice acting is solid, though it seems a bit exaggerated when it comes to the Scottish-ness of it all, even though most of the voice actors are Scottish (or at least British), so I may just be hearing things. Kelly Macdonald is a convincing teenaged girl not wanting to be betrothed to an idiot (all of her choices are very much idiots) but she can't change the content of the paper-thin material she was given to work with. Every one else is competent but not extraordinary in voicing their roles.
In the end, Brave is probably the weakest Pixar film to date, and after a couple of mediocre outings, this is the first film they have done I would say is legitimately bad. Though the spunky heroine and the beautiful animation should keep kids entertained, even if it may be a bit dark for the very young, adults will probably wonder why a ninety minute film could have been able to have had forty minutes cut without losing any of the plot.
3/10
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