First of all- it was at a drive ins, and was a double feature (Brave and Avengers) soooo we didn’t leave till 1:30….I was swamped…and had to be up early to watch Korra….I have priorities (I’ll discuss my reaction of Korra later maybe…kinda…OMG IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!)
Anyhoo yeah…with that out of the way hopefully my outbursts in the tearbending form shall be under wraps as I bring you the first Disney/Pixar movie since the death of Steve Jobbs. (I say that because the movie Brave…was dedicated to him and I feel it was rightfully good that it was.)
Now as everyone figured, this took place in (we can only assume) Scotland. Following the young princess Merida (best princess name to date in my opinion) growing up from a cute big headed poofy haired Scottish girl with a toy bow to the bad ass archer daughter of Legolas…I mean King Fergus the Bear King.
This movie was very true to the fashion of most Disney Princesses, minus one key factor. A “love interest” Merida is probably my new favorite because she doesn’t WISH to be married. She is fifteen and not ready for all of that. She knows that tradition dictates her to be betrothed to someone from one of the other three clans. Her mother has seen to that, but she is just too much like the Will o’ the Wisps (look it up I am not detouring for that lol)
So with that said I am gonna start with Part 1, the set up and Cast of Brave.
Part 1 -Cast Introduction.
Merida- you saw her above and you know her from all the previews. She is the spunky little poofy red head (WOOO) who loves her bow, her horse Angus and her family. She also loves being free to be herself. Like Jasmine before her and Ariel, along with every other Disney churned out Princess, Merida was raised lovingly yet somehow something was too strict to her. (this case her mother Queen Elinor being a controling mother preparing her for adulthood/queendom.
Merida is a good person, funny, witty and overall pretty cool. I don’t doubt if they made her older in the story (reaching 18 or already passed 18) she’d be really beautiful, however because as always- this IS a coming of age type story- she is 15 and just hittin puberty. (her mood swings prove this often.) The voice actress picked for her was perfect my only issue was her amount of complaining. Call it sexist but the story felt like she flip flopped too much and had little actual conviction in her complaints. Yes she was right to complain about them, but it fell short of her complaining out of genuine distaste instead of “I’m 15 and my mother is being a bitch, I’m gonna piss and moan like a wench.” Other then that I loved her, by far one of the best characters I’ve seen from Disney since Rapunzel and Tiana.
King Fergus
Billy Connolly people! King Fergus made me laugh, made me enjoy his pressence and over all reminded me of what a bad ass yet awesome disney dad was like. He was that father that most girls wanted to have and most guys want to become. The almost simple minded but fun and free spirited father and devoted husband but kind and just ruler of his kingdom. Having a fifteen year old daughter, three sons and a very stubborn wife, Fergus does what he knows best to stay alive- he has fun. With his two dogs and daughter he kicks back, makes jokes and pushes every button on his wife from grabbing her ass to playing stupid when she is mad at him.
Fergus also is a devoted father, he protects his daughter from a bear at the cost of his leg and then again in the castle. Doing this with little to no regard for his own safety, Fergus is that father everyone feels a man should be. (even when he is playing the fool)
Queen Elinor
Ok I am going to admit- she bothered me sometimes mostly because it seemed that for the first act she had no character, just a bothersome, stick up her ass mother. She had little sense of fun and adventure yet married a warrior husband and had a daughter bent on never growing up to be a Queen like her. Call it writing issues or something but I feel that they made her this way to make the audience not like her and grow to like her wisdom. Seeing as every story of this sort needed a hard ass bad person that really had your best intentions at heart, even if you wanted to bash her face with an ax just because she told you to not bring your weapon to the table…
The voice actress was Emma Thompson and wow I was surprised but enjoyed it, proving that a good actor/actress doesn’t need to be visually there to give a great performance. Convincing the audience of her motives was something Queen Elinor did with gusto and flawless effort. Many MANY kuddos to her.
The Triplets-
Oh ….. My……..God….these kids, I love them. I want them as my little minions. For silent devils I adored them. Charlie Chaplin would have been proud of their ability to convey everything about them, without a spoken word. Using their size, numbers and wit to pull pranks, steal, and cause mass mischief, the boys quickly became my favorite source of laughter in the movie.
Their names Hamish, Harris, and Hubert. Not sure which was which but you know what? I don’t care they rocked my socks, made me laugh, they were adorable when needed to be along with being everything you expect from red headed multiple siblings…Move over Fred and George, these three got your number and they want your spot.
These three were actually surprisingly not “anti Merida” they helped her do things when she asked and was actually quite like obedient servants to her when it came to the plot. Showing that even siblings as divided by age as them are- will help each other out….for a years worth of desserts.
Part 2
The First Act and Plot development.
Now as you can guess from the above section, Merida is the “I wanna be ME” type girl while her mother and the rest of the world (majority wise) says “oh well, grow up and be like us.”
This was the set up and the conflict we were provided at first glance and it was a pretty good set up. Merida is a confident, strong, independent girl. Especially for her age. She does what she is told but likes to add her own spice to it, which isn’t bad. Actually it’s good, it shows that she listens and follows the rules for the most part but even the oldest traditions change over time due to one reason or another, she understood this and it just so happened she wanted to change every tradition that she was supposed to take part in. Mostly because it felt wrong to her, it suffocated her (sometimes literally) Elinor- probably the first in a long time Disney Princess- MOTHER who wasn’t wicked step parent or evil to the core. All her problem was- was a generation gap. She grew up with a lot less then her daughter and felt that she HAD to give that life to Merida not realizing that shockingly the child wanted nothing to do with it, she had rather been able to have fun and be a kid. No throne, no nothing.
King Fergus was never really any help, he did slightly feel the need to provoke his wife by not taking the situation seriously but in his defense why should he have, the problem wasn’t a world crippling crisis. It was a girl going through the change to adult hood from childhood and she wanted to blaze her own trail, that is always going to be hard, it’s going to be a challenge and she will eventually get hurt a bit on the way, that’s life. Her mother however wanted to give her the easy, traveled route.
Now I know you’re thinking this “He repeats this mantra a lot so far, doesn’t anything else happen?”
Well sadly- not really, that was my issue with this story. We find out that Elinor is having the Other 3 Lords of Clans come to try and win Merida’s hand in marriage. Now this is age appropriate for the times. Suitors coming to try winning the parents approval, get a fixed marriage and be done with it…oh wait, you’re telling me Merida got the balls in the family and decides to say fuck you to that. Alrighty we got a movie…sorta…what’s the conflict? Mother daughter yelling….oh…
PLOT TWIST POWERS ACTIVATE! FORM OF CRAZY BEAR CARVING WITCH!! (no really this hag carves more wooden bears then a hooker makes money in tip.) I am serious, a crazy old lady is a witch and she trades Merida a potion to “change ‘er fayte’ for a medallion she had. (oh and every bear in the shop….I’ll get to that later)
The potion is in the form of le cake.
This potion is to be eaten by the Queen and poof change of fate. Sounds simple. But there is a catch that the Hag can’t remember. Oh well we’ll probably find out later, nothing major I bet.
Part 3- The resolution/overall thought.
so that cake? well it did work…turned Elinor into the bear she was inside. No not gay fat man bear, like giant black furry roaring bear…with poise and grace of a Queen….I’m serious…even in a bear form- Elinor tries being all “queeney” It was funny and cool.
To get her out of the castle and fix her, Merida asks the brothers to help, which oh god they love doing. It was prank central to them. Distracting Fergus and all the other clans through the castle allowing Merida and Elinor to escape, classic stuff. Resulted in the complete torment of one of the poor servant ladies…she just never got a break.
However after the girls leave- well lets just say the triplets got hungry…then cuter…in the form of bear cubs….with awesome prankster powers. One of them even got to motorboat the poor servant I mentioned earlier….over a key…I’m not kidding he does, and his brothers do the “Omg did you just see that?!” point/face.
Well we shall be skipping over the development of how to bring back the Queen to her human form because you know Pixar and Disney wrote out the hard work it would really have taken because they wanted to cover the movie in a few day span. I personally can’t really explain it because it’s seriously that- lacking hard work to break a bond between mother and daughter and instead poof instant closeness again through sarcasm and humor eventually leading to actual realization. Little effort/struggle put in…aside form Fergus trying to kill his bear-wife. You know, nothing major. (I kinda think that this was where the movie broke for me….it went from really innovative/new/original to “shit we are owned by Disney…we gotta follow that step by step plan they gave us!!”
Of course the way to bring back Elinor was quite interesting, I won’t ruin that for you seeing as I feel it was the most clever plot device in the story. I will say however I do enjoy that in the end of it all, Merida convinced her mother to let her be her. She didn’t like everything she did but she had to learn Merida would have to make her own way in the world, not follow her footsteps. Also you learn that a lot of the lessons that the two tried to teach the other, were one in the same. Just viewed from opposing sides of the coin. Teaching the audience that just because you don’t agree with a method someone has- don’t be afraid to listen to it if the end result is the same as yours, both sides might be right, but together you might be able to discover a third way or something. Besides….it’s disney there are morals about happy people, loving everyone, being nice, pranksters are the shit, you know all that good moral stuff Jesus would promote in his smashing best seller “The Bible 2- Jesus gets WiFi!” Now in E-book form and hard cover at your local book store :D
So yeah…again sorry I didn’t get to video the review, I feel that this movie would have been better reviewed in film form but honestly 12 hours after watching it, did nothing for the memory/initial after viewing review mindset you need. I do plan on seeing it again maybe in the theatres not drive ins, and when I do- I might just video review it then, giving me the ability to cover everything. Not saying this was a bad review but it is not going to be my best. Did I like Brave- YES. Would I recommend it? - Of course, to everyone of all ages. It is great, funny, emotional, it does speak to a generation that is trying to push their parents away too soon forgetting that our parents yes are always there for us but sometimes we push them to become things we regret.
Brave- the best animated movie I’ve seen all year. Hopefully it is a chance for Disney and those guys to get back on track on how to make good movies/stories. If not, I’ll always have Merida to inspire me to be awesome :D RED HEAD POWER!!!
till next time :D
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