Brave

I love most of the Pixar movies of recent years. The Incredibles was the best movie that came out that year and I still talk almost on a weekly basis about Wall-E and Ratatouille. Oh and Ratatouille must always be pronounced R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-ratatouille while making French hand motions. The kids working the box office love me when I ask for my movie ticket. But as of late it seems like Pixar has just been getting lazy which releases like Cars 2 and Toy Story 3000. When I saw the first 5 minute trailer they released for their latest effort Brave, I thought I was watching a J.J. Abrams(Cloverfield) ad. After I saw it, I still had no clue what the movie was about. So this young fiery and rebellious girl hates her parents, doesnt want to get married, and can shoot arrows with deadly accuracy? Ok, so this is a cartoon about a Bolivian stripper??? Is this really appropriate for children?

Well after seeing the film, the movie was just what I thought. No, it's not really about a Bolivian stripper but is it sad that I secretly wished it was? But it's really about a rebellious girl and her rift with her mother who so desparately wants her to look and behave like a queen. Which, no matter how hard Merida (Macdonald) fights it, it's her destiny. Well in this battle of wills, Merida reaches out to a witch to try and help her and in the process has a dangerous spell cast on her mom by mistake. So now she must do whatever is necessary to help break that spell within a certain timeframe or the spell will become permanent and could lead to deadly consequences.  It's a decent story and is actually a great one if I were a father of 18 and needed any excuse to get out of the house and keep the kids occupied. But I'm not! I'm a single dude who still thinks it's cool to see cartoons in the theater. Pixar movies used to have the right formula; a storyline or at least enough references in the story that's really geared for adults while having just enough gags to keep kids interested so everyone in the theater is laughing. But this entire movie is really just a bunch of physical comedy and is preching to young kids to be more understanding of their parents and for parents to not be so overbearing. Yawn! If I want this I'll watch reruns of the Smurfs.

If you're a adult with no kids, skip this Pixar offering and read a book instead. However if you're a family, go take the kids to see it as they will love you forever. Because this movie is full of bears, fairy looking wisps, witches, and misbehaving triplets. I rate this movie as kind of WEAK!