Good, but not Pixar's best

Brave (PG)
Review rating:***
Pixar Studios dust off some well-worn Scottish stereotypes in this good-natured but oddly bland family animation. Set at some unidentified point in Scotland’s past (but largely mimicking the faux-medieval designs of Shrek, as well as Mike Myers’ bizarre accent), Brave follows the tribulations of young Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) as her domineering mother (Emma Thompson) attempts to marry her off.
Determined to throw off the matrimonial yoke, Merida makes a break for freedom and encounters a desiccated old witch living in the forest. The witch, played by Julie Walters, offers Merida the chance to change her fate by casting a transformative spell on her mother, thus ending all questions of marriage. Of course things aren’t that simple, and Merida’s wish-making turns her family household into something resembling a Roy Cooney farce; a place of slamming-doors, mistaken-identities, and slapstick pratfalls.
Now there’s nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes, and children will no doubt love the cheerful designs and accessible humour. It’s just a shame that Brave never quite packs the same punch, emotionally or comedically, that has made Pixar’s other recent films such a joy. The first 10 minutes of Up for example, in which we see a potted version of a lifelong romance, brought a lump to many throats. Similarly with the first act of Wall-E and its plangent note of loneliness. And one hardly needs to mention Toy Story 3, the film notorious for making grown men cry.
Admittedly this is an extraordinary standard to maintain, and Brave is certainly an above average contender among this summer’s glut of family films. It’s merely disappointing that the sort of unforced simplicity that make past Pixar movies so seductive seems to be absent here. Maybe the move into the fairytale genre has pulled Pixar into a formulaic trap? Or perhaps they were unable to reconcile Princess Merida’s desire for freedom with the need to reunite her with the family by the end? I can’t say for certain. Whatever the reason, Brave is unable to graduate from the level of mildly amusing, and mildly touching. It’s by no means a bad film (it has none of the mind-numbing insipidness that made The Lorax so unremarkable), but it’s unlikely to earn a hallowed place in Pixar’s extraordinary back-catalogue.