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BRAVE – The Blu Review – We Are Movie Geeks

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BRAVE – The Blu Review

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By Joe Vanourney

I’ve felt letdown by Pixar Animation Studios for a long while.  I embraced their early works like “Toy Story” and “Monsters, Inc.”  I enjoyed “Finding Nemo” and “Toy Story 2”.  But then something happened.  I can’t place my finger on exactly what.  But the honeymoon ended. I felt “The Incredibles” was overrated.  I found “Wall-E” to be the same, and also pretentious.  Other than the wonderful and emotionally draining opening sequence, I despised “Up”.  Don’t even get me started with “Cars”.  Or “Cars 2”.  Ugh.

With that being said, Pixar’s newest entry “Brave” continues the slide into mediocrity as one of the lesser entries in the Pixar canon. It is now available in a 5-disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition from Walt Disney Studios and Buena Vista Home Entertainment, and features a 3D Blu-ray disc, a 2D Blu-ray disc, a standard DVD disc, a disc of bonus features, and a digital copy disc for downloading the film onto your portable players.

Set in Scotland when there were still clans and kings and queens, “Brave” introduces us to Merida (Kelly McDonald), a young princess with flowing red hair. Merida prefers archery and riding around in the forest on her steed Angus, than fulfilling her role as princess. She has a strained relationship with her mother Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), and the two are constantly at each other over her getting married and fulfilling her duties to the kingdom. Merida is more of a free spirit and feels she has a destiny beyond that of her Queen Mother. She seeks the help of a witch who can change the fate that lays before her. However, as is often the case, one must be careful for what one wishes for, as that creates a big mess that Merida must spend the rest of the film trying to fix.

Ultimately, “Brave” is a mother-daughter love story. I could not connect to the characters in the film at all. I felt the script and the direction was uninspired. It is a surprisingly bland film. I did not care for the character design in the film. While I LOVED the background animations of picturesque Scotland, which are also photo-realistic, the characters looked—fake isn’t quite the word—more like odd. In a not-quite-Claymation kind of way. It bugged me.

Video: The video quality of the film as presented on disc is top-notch though. Those Scotland settings are absolutely stunning, The majestic Highlands, the sun-reflecting waterfalls, the misty forests, the gorgeous greens of the moss-covered hills—all are beautiful to look at in 1080p High Definition. And despite the flaws I have with the character designs, Merida’s pile of curly red hair is incredibly detailed and looks great as well. In the second half of the movie, when the film takes place in dark places, the black levels are excellent.

Audio: Again, top-notch. The 7.1 Dolby True HD Audio track supports clear and clean center-channel dialogue, while the surround sound doesn’t neglect more subtle noises. The haunting wisps are used to great effect here. The brawl scene and the climatic battle scene fill all of the speakers to great effect, giving an impressive panning of the soundfield, putting you right in the middle of the action.

Extras: There is an extensive amount of extras covering two discs, and there is a lot to like here. There is an audio commentary track with director Mark Andrews, co-director Steve Purcell, story supervisor Brian Larsen, and editor Nick Smith. It is an above average commentary track. They keep things interesting and moving, although director Andrews seems almost too enthused in the way he gushes about this film.

There are two short films included as extras: “La Luna”- a whimsical short that played before “Brave” in theaters, and “The Legend of Mordu”—which expands upon a backstory featured in the film. “La Luna” is pretty decent (Pixar is still creating great shorts), while “Mordu” is pretty sub-standard.

There are eight Behind-the-Scenes shorts on the Blu-ray disc which total about 50 minutes. The best is “Brave Old World” which follows the animators on a research trip to Scotland to get a sense of the land and locations that they would later use in the film. It is a beautiful and interesting doc. Another segment, titled “Merida and Elinor” explores the lead female characters with the voice cast, designers, and animators. “Bears” shows animators creating the animals featured in the film from doing zoo research and internal discussion. “Brawl in the Hall” looks at the animation and development of the comedic clash of the clans. “Wonder Moss” delves into the complex creation of the film’s background moss. “Magic” dissects “Brave’s” fairy tale roots and magical elements. “Clan Pixar” introduces the film’s artists and animators in a behind-the-scenes short filmed at Pixar Studios, where the animators would do fun Scottish activities while working on the film. And “Once Upon a Scene” offers a glimpse into various versions of “Brave’s” opening and other key scenes from the film. These shorts are all well-produced, but somewhat dry. I wish they would have been edited into a more comprehensive feature-length making-of documentary.

Other bonus features included in the set include four extended scenes, promotional pieces including theatrical trailers and shorts, an art gallery full of sketches and paintings, and an alternate opening.

Regardless of the quality of the film itself, the disc of “Brave” will go down as one of the better ones released this year. Too bad the effort was wasted on such an inferior film.

FILM QUALITY: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS
VIDEO QUALITY: 5 OUT OF 5 STARS
AUDIO QUALITY: 5 OUT OF 5 STARS
BONUS FEATURES: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS