BRAVE

Pixar has done it again…made a classic that will generate/has generated a princess line of a different sort.  Set in the times of William Wallace and the Highlands of Scotland, there’s a mystic connection to magic and legend as a young woman tries to alter her destiny.  The dilemma…how does she change her fate without mucking up the lives of everyone she knows.

Merida, our heroine, is of an age, I’d say mid-teens, fiercely independent, is an exceptionally talented archer, and definitely a “Daddy’s Girl”. She has triplet younger brothers (a handful for anyone, animated or not) and a Queen Mother, whose job is to make sure her “tomboy” grows up to be a lady and a suitable future queen.  Of course, when you’re dealing with a teenager, you’re not going to see eye-to-eye, especially in a mother/daughter relationship…it’s part of growing up.

This is a beautifully presented film, start to finish, cartoonish, but then again, almost real in the way the background is designed.   The voice actors include Emma Thompson, Kelly McDonald, Billy Connolly, Julie Walters, and Craig Ferguson, only to name a few.  There’s action and adventure, tenderness and comedy, however, there’s a portion of the story that will frighten very young children, and I would recommend that you hold off taking any of the more impressionable children under the age of 6 or 7 to see the film, unless you really like halting your personal life to deal with nightmares in regard to large bears.  I tried to get a Scottish Gaelic translation for “Go see this movie”, but I can’t tell if I did it correctly.  Cha d’fhuaireadh am facal Beurla   Rating:  4 dead-on target arrows