If you could see an adventurous, bow and arrow shootin’, redheaded, Scottish princess in a thrilling tale..wouldjya? I did and plan to again. In case you didn’t catch the “wouldjya” reference it’s part of the question Merida, the protagonist princess in the film, asks audiences about changing their fate in the promotional trailer. In Brave, she wants to change her fate and realizes her attempt may have brought her and her family into an unchangeable situation. Stakes are high all throughout the film and viewers are quickly whisked into the story and intrigued when things go wrong.
This film is fantastically, visually appealing as Pixar created a magical rendition of Scotland for the story to take place. I throughly enjoyed the mannerisms of some animals that are main characters in the story. They were human-like but in a different way and perfect for their purpose.
Overall, I felt parts of the story were similar to the “princess with predetermined circumstances that longs for something different” stories we’ve heard before. I only note this because we have seen such creative, one of a kind stories come from the same outlet, such as Up and Wall-E, so the bar was raised high for me. I also would have loved to have seen some of the characters a bit more developed and with more bits and gags because they were set up so well in trailers and in the film.
The highlight of this film for me was admiring the luscious, curly locks of Merida. All of the characters in the movie were interesting to look at actually. The culture, including the music and character accents, was fun to enjoy along with the mythical creatures presented. I think Merida is a new breed of princess and that audiences of all ages will enjoy this movie when it hits theatre Friday, June 22nd.