The Rabbit Room

Totally agree. I was afraid it would be mostly un”bear”able but it was awesome. We’ll see you at Hutchmoot.

Sorry Thomas, the best part of THIS review were the girls at the beginning.

I didn’t like this one as much as some of the other Pixar offerings. La Luna could have rivaled Brave seriously. My reasons line up with the ones you noted. Maybe if I was a red headed 16 year old girl from Scotland or a Mother-bear it would be different.

I thought it was good but just not pushing the Pixar ship foward. It actually tugged it back a notch.

Give me “How to Train your Dragon” “Ratatouille” or “Monster’s Inc.” any day!

La Luna was one of the best, most imaginative things I’ve seen in a long time. I liked Brave as well, but La Luna stole the show =)

So it beat out Avengers?!

Yes, it is better than then Avengers. Not because Brave is perfect (it has issues, including a title which is pretty generic as well as under-realized supporting characters), but because it has less imperfections and more to say than the Avengers.

I had a lot of fun with the Avengers, but these people saying it is the best superhero movie ever should have their heads examined. Iron Man is better than the Avengers, not to mention the Dark Knight, the Incredibles, Watchmen, and even Tim Burton’s first Batman movie (as campy as it is compared to Christopher Nolan’s works). Like I said, I really liked the Avengers, but let’s not make more of it than it is.

I agree with your second paragraph Tom.

The Incredibles is the best superhero movie ever made. With apologies to The Dark Knight. (In all honesty, I didn’t think The Dark Knight was all that anyway. Too much moralizing, awkward foreshadowing, etc.)

I just saw this tonight and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.

My two daughters, ages 9 and 11 couldn’t help ask as we drove to the theater “Mommy, do you actually want to see Brave, you don’t like animated movies remember?”. Absolutely true, I don’t, but they really wanted to see it and with the one minute review I gave it a shot.

I thought it had great themes on mothers-daughters, selfish choices (and choices made in anger), fate. And it lead into greater themes on the drive home as we talked about how in our own lives the Holy Spirit leads us and how it does take courage to follow the path which may (will) take us down challenging roads. And that the mistakes the main character made and the difficult parts that followed were part of the main character’s fate and part of what changed her and her mom.

(La Luna was terrific, it cracked our imaginations wide open as we watched it.)

A much better movie in this genre (Celtic folklore + animation) is The Secret of Kells.

I was a disappointed in Brave. I wouldn’t say it was bad, I will most likely even own it, but I walked away feeling like there were too many things unspoken for, namely as you mentioned, lack of development of secondary characters, but also even the main focus, the movie felt too short. The animation and music were amazing, and I think however basic, the story could have been told better with more time. It felt like a How to Train Your Dragon genre which didn’t help either since I felt that movie was well done.

I even went back and watched Cars 2 this past weekend which many claim to be Pixar’s weakest plot wise, but I actually continue to enjoy that as the characters are well thought out and the story plays out with much attention to detail and I feel content, Brave didn’t even make it that far for me. The secondary characters bothers me the most as Pixar is usually really good at even them, just think about Sid’s (SP?) misfit toys in Toy Story One, they don’t talk, they don’t really interact that much, but enough that you accept them as characters for the moment they are needed.

All that being said, I will definitely watch Brave again on Blu-Ray to see if I’m missing something, which is very possible.

Secret of the Kells was very cool, as was Avengers, but Iron Man still wins out on the Super Hero movie, not including Incredibles which stands in a class of its own.

Thomas, I realize your daughters are older. What do think of it for younger kids? My daughters are 4 and 6. I know some of their peers are seeing the movie, but I have been hesitant to take them due to violence and more mature content.