- Location: Regal colony Square Stadium 12
- It must be difficult to be a Scottish intellectual these days. There was no shortage of them historically (Lord Kelvin, Adam Smith, Maxwell, and Hume all come to mind) and presumably no small number of them now, but popular culture seems content to ignore this aspect of Scotsdom. Instead, animated films like the Shrek series, How to Train Your Dragon, and now Brave present the average Scot as immensely coarse and rowdy, more likely to start a brawl than to think a clear thought. When Scrooge McDuck is the closest thing we've got to a calm, rational, animated highlander, there's a problem.
- But that's not to say that Brave is bad, of course. It's an average Pixar offering, which means that it is actually quite good. Strange as this may seem, the best part of the film is probably its star's hair. Young Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is in possession of a mop of curly red locks that wreak havoc on brushes and have a mind of their own. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time any animated film has even attempted to capture such a complicated coiffure and certainly the first time one has succeeded. Merida's hair also serves as a convenient illustration of her relationship with her parents. While her father King Fergus (Billy Connolly) thinks that hair should be free to flow where it will, her mother Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) would rather it was pinned back.
- Given Merida's headstrong disposition (which honestly could have come from either set of genes), you can guess what happens when a host of supposedly noble suitors compete publicly and comically for her hand in marriage. That one of the families is named MacGuffin probably tells you all you need to know. What you may not have anticipated, however, is how a magical spell sold to Merida by a mysterious witch (Julie Walters) enters into the picture. Without giving too much away, the effects of the spell eventually prove that her mother is not as unbearable as Merida once thought. The experience even provides Merida and family with another chance to face the dreadful ursine demon Mor'du that claimed the king's leg, as he is fond of recounting.
- Personally, I appreciate the look, animation, and tone of Brave much more than the delivery of the film's intended message. To wit, the film's most beautiful creations are the mysterious and ethereal will-o'-the-wisps that haunt the darker portions of the forest. That said, if your preferred method of wresting control of your fate is to unquestioningly follow magical beings that have only led you to trouble in the past, then I'm sorry--you're doing it wrong. Still, I can't complain too much about such a charming and gorgeously realized effort. Maybe the average Pixar film still isn't quite as good as the average Studio Ghibli film, but the studio and its audience could be doing far worse.
- I didn't mention that Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd, Craig Ferguson and Pixar mainstay John Ratzenberger also provided voices.
- The film was preceded by a nice short film La Luna about the kid who has to clean up the Moon.
- The first Pixar film to focus on women was also directed by a woman, Brenda Chapman. And then she was fired and replaced by Mark Andrews.
