Review: "Disney's Brave" tries for bearish when it should be feminist

"Disney's Brave" G
The producers of Up return with a story set in the universe of medieval Scotland, where a fire haired headstrong princess decides she is not suited to marry a man, but should instead change her destiny. The trailer tagline has an interesting voice oddity when she says, 'If you can change yer fate, would yee, but Yee is old English for The, (...would the...doesn't make sense) so what she should have said was 'would'ja' or yeh'. The movie though reminds one of Beowulf and Tame Your Dragon, and this is at times annoying, however for the most part the affect of Mariam's quest is fun and colorful. Some intense scenes with the transfigured bears likely will startled young children. The film plot if 'Frog Prince' meets 'Brother Bear' meets 'Cinderella', except the mother isn't evil, just really demanding, because she is the queen. The gigantic father, the king, comes off as a Beowulf king archetype, and the guy from the dragon movie, but Meriam is completely different from those. The queen demands that her daughter be betrothed according to tradition, after a contest of strength, but the princess bests her suitors and refuses. The queen is livid and yells at her, causing her to run off into the woods, where she meets a woodcarver lady who is also a witch, and is given a spell when can change her mother's mind, only it does a whole lot more, as it literally turns her into a bear. This makes her look like the local marauding bear, and there is a great series of mishaps with armies from the land of clans around the kingdom as the suitors came with their kings to the castle and stayed. All of it takes place over a mere 48 hours. The cartoon is Pixar animation and done with that sort of 3d style Americanized animae big heads and big eyes, and visually it is quite lovely. The story at times is just a series of running gags, like Tangled was (which also had a headstrong princess), but this is a bit more free verse. The animators play with all manner of gags and even an occasional nude joke, which was odd, and there is at least one mooning joke, which was even stranger, and seemed to belong in something like Madagascar, not this one, but oh well. Good movie.
     It's a good thing this is set in medieval times because before that the idea of fate and destiny did not come into play in ancient Scotland. 

Review by Adam Browne

(Note: The Mattel dolls in stores look nothing like her. The Disney store ones are more show accurate).