Brave is a Pixar film about a girl who refuses to be married off, picks up a sword, and fights her way through a Scottish castle to save her mother’s life. That premise sounds bold. The execution is less so. This is a movie about princesses and dragons that spends most of its runtime playing it safe, even when the plot asks for risk.
Trailer, via Pixar.
Merida’s Arc
Merida is the princess of Dunbroch, and she wants none of it. She wants to ride horses, shoot arrows, and live outside the castle walls. Her father, King Fergus, and her mother, Queen Elinor, are used to being obeyed. When Merida refuses to follow tradition and pick a suitor, she sets off a chain reaction that threatens to tear the kingdom apart.
The arc is classic Pixar coming-of-age fare: a child learns that rules exist for a reason, and breaking them has consequences. What makes it work is the chemistry between Merida and Elinor. Their scenes together carry more emotional weight than any action sequence.
The Witch’s Curse
When Merida’s refusal sparks a feud among the clans, she turns to a witch in the woods for help. The witch offers a spell that will settle the dispute, but the price is steep: Merida’s mother will turn into a bear, and only Merida can undo the curse. The deal is a simple setup, but the film treats the stakes with genuine dread.
The bear transformation is the film’s most effective visual moment. The animation is fluid, and the way the curse spreads across Elinor’s face is genuinely unsettling. It’s a rare instance where the film trusts its audience to feel discomfort.
The Animation
Brave looks beautiful. The Scottish Highlands are rendered with thick, rolling mist and verdant greenery. The castle interiors are dark and stone-heavy, giving the film a sense of weight that many animated movies lack. The characters are expressive, especially Merida’s wild red hair, which moves like a living character of its own.
But the beauty doesn’t translate into invention. The film borrows heavily from traditional fairy-tale archetypes: the wise old king, the proud warrior, the meddling clansmen. None of them feel new, and the script rarely asks them to do anything beyond what we’ve seen before.
The Bear Fight
The climax involves Merida fighting the transformed Elinor in a forest fire. It’s a tense set-piece, well-choreographed, but it plays out like a video game boss fight. The fire is a spectacle, and the bear is a threat, but the stakes feel mechanical rather than emotional.
The scene works better as a showcase for animation than as a moment of character growth. Merida and Elinor are both fighting, but the film never quite lands the emotional payoff of mother and daughter facing each other across a roaring blaze.
The Music
Patrick Doyle’s score is sweeping and orchestral, full of bagpipe flourishes and soaring strings. The songs, performed by Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, are pleasant but forgettable. They don’t elevate the material; they sit beside it.
The music is competent, but it never becomes essential. The film could lose its songs entirely and lose very little.
The Final Act
The ending resolves the conflict neatly. Merida breaks the spell, the clans reconcile, and the kingdom returns to peace. It’s a happy ending, and it feels earned because Merida has grown. But the journey to get there was less satisfying than it could have been.
The film’s middle stretch drags. There’s a lot of talking about clan honor and ancient traditions, and the pacing suffers for it. The final act rushes to tie everything up, leaving some threads loose and others resolved too quickly.
The Verdict
Brave is a solid, sometimes beautiful Pixar film that never quite reaches greatness. Its heart is in the right place, and its message about respecting tradition while staying true to oneself is timely. But the storytelling is conventional, the supporting cast is thin, and the action sequences are more spectacle than drama.
The film is best remembered for its visuals and its emotional core. Everything else is serviceable.
- A strong lead performance from Merida
- A memorable bear transformation
- Beautiful Scottish landscapes
- A predictable middle section
- Songs that add little
- A finale that rushes the resolution
Brave is a good film, not a great one. It earns a 6.9 out of 10.
