A Pixar movie comes with a lot of baggage; understandable given their track record: five masterpieces, four near classics, two great children’s films, and only one godawful stinker (I’ll let you work out which is which). And that’s not even counting the marvelous shorts preceding each one. Over the past seventeen years, Pixar has remained remarkably consistent, a paragon of quality entertainment unprecedented in cinema history.
No one bats a thousand, however, and 2011 marked the release of Cars 2 and the end of their miraculous streak. It’s sad yet inevitable. But it’s also preposterous—no one and nothing is perfect (except maybe The Beatles). Regardless, the weight of those expectations is doubtless felt by a great many movie goers as they see Brave, 2012’s Disney•Pixar release. If you go into Brave like that, like me, then you will find mild disappointment. If you’re eyeing the first of the two companies headlining Brave posters, Disney, then you’ll likely be pleased.
Brave is Pixar’s most Disney-fied outing to date (and ironically not a very “brave” one naratively speaking). Although Brave sports a bevy of veteran talents at the helm (Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman direct, Steve Purcell co-directs), it’s Pixar’s least authorial film. Don’t get me wrong; Brave is stunning—I could barely take my eyes of Merida’s wild, ginger locks—but compared to Pixar’s earlier films like, say, Wall•E, where characters are vividly defined using only bleeps and bloops, Brave lacks clearly-defined and memorable personalities apart from Merida or a strong enough voice to distinguish it beyond general fantasy. It’s a grand and sweeping fairytale in true Disney tradition but we’ve come to expect more from Pixar. After all, who didn’t cry (alright, at least well up) during Up’s opening montage of love and loss or when Andy gave up his beloved toys in Toy Story 3? When’s the last time a Disney movie did that to you?
I suppose I would’ve had a bit more fun with Brave if I hadn’t gleaned everything about the plot from the trailer. It’s hardly Disney marketing’s fault—it’s not like the plot gets spelled out as happens for some movies—but an upfront maternal conflict followed by glimpses at an anthropomorphized mama bear (not to mention three, mischevious cubs of both the human and bear varieties) deflated any mystery about what would happen in Merida’s Gaelic quest.
I admit the touches of Miyazaki, what with cooing will o’ the wisps, were a pleasant surprise as was Brave’s pacing and lack of blunt exposition. Brave never says what comes of the kooky, enterprising witch living in the forest, only allows inference to the origin of “villain”, Mor’du, and the rules surrounding magic are never explicitly listed. It’s intriguing enough to keep attentions held and never is Brave outright bad (there’s no ‘Mater here) but apart from bar-raising visual artistry and a couple of chuckles, there’s not much else. For all its heartfelt mending between the prim and proper queen and her unruly, tomboyish princess, Brave never attempts to scale the heights of greatness, despite the frequency with which Pixar Studios has proven it can time and again, instead resting at a place halfway there, right around “good enough”.
