Courage

When I heard about Brave, quite some time ago, I was pretty excited about it. Despite that, I never managed to catch it in the theaters. I did hear that it was only ok, even from friends, but that actually didn't do much to dampen my enthusiasm. The trailers certainly looked funny, and it hit me in a couple of soft spots (celtic influence, red-headed heroine, prominent archery).

So I didn't hesitate to preorder it when it was announced, and was happy to get it Tuesday.

I didn't watch it that night, though, thinking I wanted to get to bed earlier. And then I stayed up until two. sigh

So I watched it last night, starting with the new short, Legend of Mordu. Was quite disappointed by that. Was a decent background piece, and I liked how the witch portrayed herself. But compared to Burn-E or Jack-Jack Attack (or even Dug's Special Mission), it was extremely lacking. I doubt I'll watch it again, and I love watching those others.

Oh, and I watched La Luna with my son. It was largely obvious what was going to happen, especially as I'd noticed the name of the boat in the opening shot. But it was still very cute and enjoyable. It won't get into the conversation about Pixar's best short (I have a hard time picking between For the Birds, Presto, Lifted, and One Man Band), but I'd put it on a par with Geri's Game or Boundin'.

Anyway, after putting the kids to bed, I finally got around to watching the movie itself. I had somewhat mixed feelings about it. I liked Merida quite a bit, and I really liked some of the sequences leading into the main story (Merida's Day Off was extremely powerful, ignoring that doing that wearing a dress would have been suicide). The baby brothers were also hilarious, as was Fergus. And Emma Thompson did an excellent job as Elinor, the mother.

My big complaint about it, though, was that the main conflict was a self-inflicted problem. I'm never a big fan of that, and that certainly wasn't what I expected from what I saw in the trailers. I think I was expecting something more along the lines of Merida becoming the head of the kingdom in her own right, through dramatically saving the kingdom or something along those lines. But the only thing she ended up saving them from was her own pig-headedness.

I'll certainly end up watching it again (with my daughter, at the very least), but I must admit that it didn't live up to my (likely unrealistic) expectations.

I'd say it's worth watching, just know that it's mostly about Merida's relationship with Elinor (and does have some nice scenes between the two of them, as well).