Brave

[Tristy]

New Image!

[laughingoctopus]

Nice, this movie looks good. I love the art design for some reason.

[Tristy]

Did anybody see the new Japanese trailer? It looks really epic!

[EricJ]

"Humans must follow the laws of the Forest"--
Yeah, I could sense a bit of emphasis on "Princess McMononoke".

(But have a feeling we'll see more specific plot-related trailers over here as we get closer to summer, and Pixar doesn't play their cards so close to the chest. The other countries seem to have been getting more plot exposition than we have so far.)

[EricJ]

New Image!

Eh, prefer something a little more realistic:

[Macaluso]

Voice wise she's great. Look wise, Disney did a poor job casting her considering how well they typically do.

[Bill1978]

I was just about to post that I thought the accent was terrible. I'm happy to be told I'm wrong but it is clear she isn't from Scotland, I heard plenty of drops in the accent to the point it was offputting and made me see her as an actor as opposed to a character. I thought look wise she was good, but then I haven't really been following the production stills and trailers that closely.

[Ben]

Voice-wise I haven't seen enough, really, to comment, but that Japanese trailer has finally got me properly interested in seeing "Merida And The Frightening Forest" now.

[Bill1978]

I agree Ben, the Japanese trailer makes me curious and increases my level of anticipation for the movie. The English language trailers though just make me yawn and see Brave as Pixar's version of what would happen if Brother Bear's lead character was a female and we are viewing the story from the hunting relative as opposed to the relative changed to the bear.

[laughingoctopus]

I just finally watched the Japanese trailer and, despite my lack of interest in every American trailer, this now officially looks like a damn good movie. The American trailers emphasize humor, with little to no plot, and it's a relief to know that's not really what the whole movie is like. I hope it's the same thing with the Paranorman trailers.

[Bill1978]

Soundtrack is available for pre-order at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Brave-Various-Art ... 759&sr=8-1

If you like to work out what may happen from score titles.

[Ben]

While I have found I really like Doyle's stuff, this is the kind of film where I'll wait to see the movie and hearing the music in context before choosing to pick it up or not. But I likely will, at some point, if only to keep my Disney streak going...!

[James]

AV's review is online: http://animatedviews.com/2012/brave-film/

[GRUNT]

I gotta admit, my reactions are a little mixed about the film. I settled quickly after realising the film's smaller scale, but even so, I find that something about the pacing puts me off...I can't put my finger on it, but it doesn't feel quite right to me.

I gotta say though, I had a real "oh snap" moment, when I realised what the story was actually going to be about. I still think that they should have stuck with 'The Bear and the Bow' as the name of the film - much more evocative, and I think it somehow rings truer to the theme of the story.

The first half or so of the film was, for me, the best. The cutting between Elinor and Merida when both are voicing their grievances on the situation was inspired. Likewise, the scene with Merida galloping through the forest on Angus and hitting all those targets she set up with her arrows - that gave me goosebumps. The visuals and the music was just absolutely stunning.

With Pixar, there's generally some sort of twist...some deft touch which turns even a relatively humble-sounding story like Ratatouille into something amazing. Somehow, I didn't quite get that with Brave...it felt like the story was played just a bit too 'straight', if that makes any sense.

I don't know - did anyone else feel this way?

[James]

I think the played straight feeling might be related to my feeling of the story being a rehash of other stories. They didn't really bring anything new.

I will say they did a great job not giving away the plot in the trailers. I try not to learn too much plot info about movies beforehand so I can enjoy them more. And in this case the biggest plot element was a complete surprise to me. The decision to not make that part of the marketing had to be deliberate and...

...that may have been why they changed the title.

I'd also like to add...

...I was very proud of the last sentence in the second paragraph of my review. No spoilers there unless you've already seen the film!