Brave (2012)
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The Scottish King Fergus of Clan DunBroch presents his young daughter Merida with a bow and arrow for her birthday. While practicing with the bow, Merida briefly encounters a will-o'-the-wisp as a giant demon bear named Mor'du attacks the family. Merida escapes along with her mother Queen Elinor while Fergus fights off the bear alongside his men at the cost of his left leg. Years later, Elinor has since given birth to identical triplet boys, and Merida has become a free-spirited and adventurous teenager. One day, her mother informs her she is to be betrothed to one of her father's allied clans: Dingwall, Macintosh, or MacGuffin. Despite her mother's attempts to appease her by telling her a legend of a power-hungry prince who broke off from his duty and caused the ruin of a kingdom, Merida is dissatisfied with the arranged marriage.
The clans arrive with their first-born sons to compete in Highland Games for Merida's hand, and the princess
chooses archery as the main event. During the competition, Lord Dingwall's son wins by accident. Merida enters the competition, saying that as the first-born of Clan DunBroch she is eligible to compete for her own hand, and Elinor and Merida have a falling out. When Merida destroys a tapestry depicting her family and Elinor burns her bow, Merida flees to the forest. While there, the Will O' The Wisps lead her to an elderly witch's hut. The witch denies being a witch anymore due to "too many dis-satisfied customers", saying she is a wood carver (and each of her carvings seem to involve a bear.) After some bargaining, the witch agrees to give Merida a spell that will "change her mother" in the form of a cake to be eaten by the Queen. During the conversation, she also mentions a prior customer - some prince who wanted the strength of 10 men, who was later revealed to be the same prince from the legend the Queen told Merida earlier.
Merida returns to the castle and gives her mother the cake, causing her to transform into a bear. With the help of her brothers, Merida gets Elinor out of the castle. The pair return to the witch's cottage, finding it empty as the witch left to gather new supplies. Through a potion-controlled automated message, Merida discovers that the spell will be permanent unless undone by the second sunrise. The witch leaves Merida a riddle, mentioning that a pride-torn bond must be repaired. The next morning, Merida and her mother begin to reconcile their relationship while gathering fish and playing in a near-by river. However, Merida learns the spell is slowly becoming permanent, turning Elinor into a wild bear. The pair encounter the Wisps again and follow them to ancient ruins and learn that Mor'du was once the prince of Elinor's legend who received the same spell from the witch. Suddenly, Merida, who has fallen into an inner level of the castle ruins is attacked by the demon bear Mor'du / the fourth prince and is barely rescued by her mother. During the attack, Merida has a vision that they must restore the tapestry Merida ripped lest Elinor becomes completely like Mor'du and with this new-found knowledge, they race back to the castle.
At the castle, the clans are on the verge of war because of Merida's actions. With help from her mother, Merida quells their fighting and declares that the first-borne should be allowed to get married in their own time. The other first-borns agree and the lords lay down their grudges. While Merida and Elinor sneak into the tapestry room, Fergus goes to his bed chambers to find Elinor, but mistakes her for dead after seeing the room destroyed. Meanwhile Elinor has once again reverted to wild bear mentality and attacks both Merida and Fergus when he steps into their room. On regaining human consciousness, she feels guilty and races out of the castle chased by Fergus. He refuses to believe Merida when she says the bear is the Queen and locks her in her room, racing outside to kill the bear, believing it is Mor'du. Merida again escapes with her brothers' (who have also been turned into little bears, after eating the left-over cake) help and races after her father & others alongwith her brothers, while fixing the tapestry.
By now, the clan members and Fergus have captured Elinor / the bear with ropes. Merida arrives and steps between her father and mother, trying to explain the situation but Mor'du appears and attacks Merida. Fergus and the clan members try to defend Merida, but are thrown aside. Elinor / the bear furiously breaks the ropes to defend her daughter and lunges for Mor'du. There is a fierce fight and she almost loses. But eventually Elinor makes him use his own strength against some broken masonry, which falls on and kills him, setting the spirit of the prince free.
The sun begins to rise and Merida quickly places the repaired tapestry over her wounded mother, declaring that she loves her and apologizes for everything. Elinor shows no signs of returning to human form and Merida begins to weep feeling very guilty for her actions. However, after a few moments her mother is transformed back, along with the triplets. A few days later the clans leave for their respective lands and Merida and Elinor ride their horses together, sharing a closer relationship than before.
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Release
The film was initially set for release on June 15, 2012, but was later changed to June 22, 2012. The film premiered on the last day of the Seattle International Film Festival on June 10, 2012. It had its Australian premiere on June 11, 2012, at the Sydney Film Festival, and had its domestic premiere on June 18, 2012, at the new Dolby Theatre in Hollywood as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival, its European premiere was at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicilly on June 23, 2012 and its British premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 30, 2012.In the United States and Canada, Brave is the first feature-length film to use the Dolby Atmos sound format.
Almost half of the 14 theaters set up to show the film in Atmos are located in California (Burbank, Century City, Fremont, Hollywood, San Francisco, and Sherman Oaks), with the others located in seven states (Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Kansas City, Missouri, Paramus, New Jersey, Las Vegas, Nevada, Chicago, West Plano, Texas, Vancouver, Washington) and in Toronto, Ontario.[27] It was released in other theaters with Dolby Surround 7.1. In total, it was released in 4,164 theaters, a record-high for Pixar, which was previously held by Cars 2 (4,115 theaters). 2,790 of the theaters will include 3D shows.
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Critical response
Brave has received positive reviews from film critics. On April 3, 2012, Pixar screened the first 30 minutes of the movie, and it received a positive reaction by the screeners. The film was also well-received among general audiences, earning an "A" CinemaScore.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 76% of critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6.8/10 based on 162 reviews. The consensus statement reads, "Brave offers young audiences and fairy tale fans a rousing, funny fantasy adventure with a distaff twist and surprising depth." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 68 based on 26 reviews.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and wrote, "The good news is that the kids will probably love it, and the bad news is that parents will be disappointed if they're hoping for another Pixar groundbreaker." He said that the film had an uplifting message about improving communication between mothers and daughters.
Peter Debruge of Variety gave a positive review of the film, remarking that the film "offers a tougher, more self-reliant heroine for an era in which princes aren't so charming, set in a sumptuously detailed Scottish environment where her spirit blazes bright [sic] as her fiery red hair." Debruge also said that "Adding a female director [Brenda Chapman] to its creative boys' club, the studio [Pixar] has fashioned a resonant tribute to mother-daughter relationships that packs a level of poignancy on par with such beloved male-bonding classics as Finding Nemo."
Conversely, Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said that the film "diminishes into a rather wee thing as it chugs along, with climactic drama that is both too conveniently wrapped up and hinges on magical elements that are somewhat confusing to boot."
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Box office
The film has grossed $84,198,540 in North America, and $13,500,000 in other countries, as of June 26, 2012, for a worldwide total of $97,698,540.
Pre-release tracking suggested the film would open around $55 to $65 million, which is slightly below average for a Pixar film. These predictions were attributed to the film not appealing to males and to the good but not great reviews for the film. On the other hand, its female protagonist, which would draw many females of all ages, and 3D were expected to boost earnings.
In North America, it opened on June 22, 2012 with an estimated $24.6 million. It finished its opening weekend with $66.3 million. This was the fourth-largest weekend in June and the fifth-largest for a Pixar film. Concerns that male viewers would not come to see an animated film with a female lead proved largely groundless with the estimated audience in attendance being 43% male.
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Directed by Mark Andrews
Brenda Chapman
Steve Purcell
Produced by Katherine Sarafian
Screenplay by Mark Andrews
Steve Purcell
Brenda Chapman
Irene Mecchi
Story by Brenda Chapman
Starring
Kelly Macdonald
Julie Walters
Billy Connolly
Emma Thompson
Kevin McKidd
Craig Ferguson
Robbie Coltrane
John Ratzenberger
Music by Patrick Doyle
Editing by Nicholas C. Smith
Studio Pixar
Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures
Release date: June 10, 2012 (Seattle International Film Festival)
June 22, 2012 (United States)
Running time: 93 minutes
Language: English
Budget: $185 million
Box office: $97,698,540
