I think it's fair first of all to talk about something I won't rip to pieces so I'm going to talk about Merida first. Even though I didn't like her when I first saw the movie she's became one of my all time favorite animated heroines. She's funny, entertaining, smart, cute(not pretty or beautiful), fun-loving, free spirted, wild, and well brave. Sure she's not very original and is basically the Pixar version of Ariel and Jasmine, mostly Ariel, but she's still entertaining. Plus it's awesome to actually have a female Pixar protagonist, I actually hadn't noticed it until someone brought it up. When I thought of a strong female Pixar heroine I think of Jessie who's a really strong, epic, complex, and in my opinion beautiful character. Merida was the reason Jessie stopped being my favorite Pixar heroine. She's pretty well developed and grows through a real grown in the film. She was a little bit bratty but she's recognizes her mistakes and fixes them. Out of her, Tiana, and Rapunzel, Merida's the best.
However now it's time for me to unfortunately start ripping on what's wrong with Merida. She's part of what Pixar was false advertising. I was expecting this heroically bada** character who would be on the same level of being heroic and bada** as Mulan and Kim Possible. She's heroic but she's nothing special in heroics, she doesn't show very much of it. She saves her mom once but her mom is usually the one saving her. You'd think that since Merida made this trouble she'd be the one who defeated Mordu, that would've shown an even bigger growth as a character. Ariel lacked that but she was still more developed and as least had a reason why she couldn't do it, it's because Eric needed something to do. Merida on the other hand has no love interest and why her mother had to defeat Mordu is beyond me. I think both heroines should have been the ones to defeat their villains, but at least Ariel had a reason. They advertised this completely heroically bada** character who I thought might even be more heroic than Mulan. She's not that heroic and bada**. They could've done a much better job with her. I mean if they're going to show the very first pixar female protagonist they might as well have her save the day and defeat the villain, that makes an impression, not just have her mom do it. That doesn't make an impression on people!
Now time for me to talk about the actual movie but first I want to make it clear that I love the movie but it just has a lot of problems and one of them is false advertising. First of all the beginning of the movie was perfect, except for the part about showing Mordu. The movie only goes downhill when Merida meets the witch. First of all let's talk about the villain of the story, Mordu. I knew he was going to be a villain but I thought he'd be more minor and that the witch would be the villain. I thought that maybe she would have once had control over the land when she had power over Scotland and part of that was the curse of Mordu. But once day the first was broken by Fergus and during the process he lost his leg but won the heart of the Princess Elinor. She wanted revenge and when Merida runs away from home and runs into the wisps comes to her cottage and finds out she's the princess she uses her to reenact the curse. She promise's to give her a spell that would change her fate if she gives her a drop of her blood, because the curse can be come back if the blood the the first born of the one who ended the curse is given. The Witch delivers her part by turning the royal family that's royal by blood, except Merida, into black bears. Fergus goes to search for his family while the witch plans to have Mordu kill Fergus and Merida has to end the curse and change her family back.
Mordu I think would've been better as just a minor villain. I love his back story but I think it would've been better if they added that the witch not only turned him into a bear but also into a curse. He's just be an evil curse with a prince filled with regret and wanting his soul to be free. Once Merida defeats him and the witch he dies and his soul is free to move on and ascend to heaven. That makes much more sense than making him the main villain, which he wasn't very interesting as.
The movie was very predictable and I just kept hoping that this dark and absolutely amazing story would happen but it didn't. The story was basically just trying to turn the queen back into a human after she was turned into a bear. Now tell me where have we heard that before? Part of this was a rip off of Brother Bear, though I like Brave better. It's basically a mixture of Brother Bear, The Princess and The Frog, and The Little Mermaid. The parts that were from The Little Mermaid worked pretty well and didn't bug me, Bother Bear and The Princess and The Frog made it predictable and bland. While both are good movies they just don't work together, even with The Little Mermaid. It's like putting ketchup, pizza, and ice cream together, they taste good separately but put them together it taste AWFUL! This movie isn't bad, it's really good, but very predictable and nothing phenomenal or spectacular. It's definitely no Finding Nemo or Toy Story 3. I was expecting this really dark and complex story about a curse on the kingdom that Merida had to break but instead we get a cute little story about a princess trying to turn her mother back into a human after turning her into a bear.
Now to my real issue with the whole false advertising issue I have. When they made the trailers for it they kept saying that it was going to be a dark and complex story about a curse and Merida was going to break it. They made that perfectly clear, especially after Merida said "It seems I unleashed a WEEEEE ancient curse", if that doesn't say they were doing false advertising I don't know what does. The trailers and commercials were all LIES, LIES, LIES! I'm surprised no one has sued Pixar yet. I'd say that someone should if it wasn't for the fact that it was Disney but if it was anyone else I'd be the first one to sue their butts off, that and if I could afford a lawyer. I thought this movie might have had a chance of replacing Finding Nemo as my favorite Pixar movie but now that I saw it it's not even close.
Anyway overall it's a good movie. I love the songs and the soundtrack. The characters are nothing groundbreaking or amazing and are kind of bland and forgettable, except for Merida. The first Pixar female protagonist was absolutely amazing but just needed to show A LOT more heroic's and bada**ness. The ending was awesome though. I kind of think that maybe Merida could've gotten a love interest, I know that might kill it but that kind of would've in a way shown her growth as a character. Good movie but it could've been WAY better than it was. It's not one of the best Pixar movies, in fact it's one of it's least greatest, it's only better than Cars, Cars 2, and especially Wall-e because those movie were awful. This movie is really good but once again it could've been WAY better. Comparing the actual movie to the way it was portrayed in the trailers it like comparing pizza to bag of chips, good but not as satisfying as pizza. I give this movie three and a half stars.
