Movie review: Brave

Directed by: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman
Story: Brenda Chapman
Cast (voices): Queen Elinor - Emma Thomson
                    Merida: Kelly Macdonald
                    King Fergus: Billy Conolly
                    The Witch: Julie Walters





Synopsis:

Brave (2012 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Once upon a time in medieval Scotland lived an impetuous princess called Merida. Merida loved riding her pony and shooting arrows at different targets. Mainly artificial, immobile targets, mind you, nothing alive. Hunting? Who heard of hunting in the Middle Ages? At that time people and wild animals lived in perfect harmony as nobody, either noble or otherwise, ate venison, right? Ok, I digress… soon enough Merida found out that the life of a princess is not only about learning and pleasures but also about duties. Her mom, the queen Elinor, decided that Merida, a 16-year-old girl, should marry. Elinor wheedled her husband, King Fergus, into organizing a nice little contest; they invited three other clans and each of them presented the most worthy young men, candidates to be a husband of a princess.

Merida was angry, shocked and hurt but mainly shocked. How could her beloved mom do something like THAT to her when she, a spoiled teenager, stated several times that she WAS. NOT. READY. FOR. A. MARRIAGE (and of course she knew best)? Let me remind you that we deal here with a Middle Ages princess who is basically telling her mum to stick her ideas up her...long braid. Her dad, a big oaf of a king and a totally henpecked husband, was hardly of help. It was time for extraordinary measures. After a fight with her mom she tore off into the woods on her faithful pony and immediately was led by a will-o’-the-wisp to a cottage inhabited by a witch…er…magical wood carver. Making a deal with a witch is never a good idea but our clever Merida decided she knew best once again - she purchased not only a room-full of useless wooden statues of bears but also a small cake which could change the eater… quite dramatically.

As soon as she returned to the castle, Merida presented her mum with the cake, calling it a peace offering. Elinor, appeased, ate one little piece of it. The results, as always when you deal with magic, exceeded anybody’s expectations. All of a sudden Merida was faced with harsh reality – either she made things right soon or her life and the lives of her family would be tragically changed forever.

My impressions:

Brave, originally titled The Bear and the Bow, follows a prickly mother-daughter relationship with a dash of special effects connected with magic – a willful teenager confronts her stubborn mother, asks for help a complete stranger creating more problems than she’s ever believed possible and ends up solving them all. Fine, just fine. 
I really wanted to be smitten by this one. The premise sounded so nice and enticing at first glance: Scottish Highlands and a Disney/Pixar cartoon  focusing almost completely on female characters; mind you it was not, I repeat, it WAS NOT about finding the love of their lives. I almost felt like cheering. Then my problems started. 

All male characters were there to provide comedy relief, remaining as thin as cardboard cut-outs (so no, don’t invite your boyfriend/husband along to see this movie; it might have disastrous effects). There’s the idiotic father, completely dominated by his cool wife, and three triplet boys who are simply up to no good all the time and could have easily been one person, so similar they seem. There is also a bunch of fight-crazy, bombastic clansmen who just eat, drink, laugh loudly, quarrel, fight and strut about (small wonder they would lose their independence in the near future). It was funny for about five minutes but after a while I admit I  got bored, waiting in vain for somebody male with brains (such a thing exists, right?). In other words, somebody to break the routine in an intelligent way. At the end I found out that  this tale definitely wasn’t as fresh and groundbreaking as I hoped. For all the hubbub about Merida being Pixar’s first truly feminist princess, there is little evidence that she is anything more than a spoiled redhead lass, badly in need for a life lesson or two. She is also surprisingly weak – even compared to the other Disney princesses. 

Say what you might about Jasmine but she was far more independent and clever enough to escape her gild cage and then play along with Jafar to help Aladdin. Ariel knew what she wanted and had to work hard on her own in order to win over the prince. Belle had to work as well and overcome many obstacles to save the day and her beloved Beast. Merida, on the other hand, simply has to reverse what harm she did (and let me remind you she did it out of  her own sheer stupidity) and follow the steps laid out for her at the very beginning – not a particularly difficult task you must admit. If anything, it’s Merida’s mother who is the strong female, being more than capable of stopping the men right in their tracks, especially her husband. Yes, I appreciated the fact that Merida didn’t have to either fall in love or marry at the end (undoubtedly preparing the ground for the next installment in which she WILL marry as her mum wishes) but I felt a bit disenchanted by too many clichés, plaguing this movie. Mother/daughter bonding couldn’t carry the whole an-hour-and-half long film and it is hardly something new although I admit an evil step-mother is a far more popular trope.

What’s more…ok, I grant it, the visual effects were simply great. The shaggy, orange-red hair of Merida was done in a really ingenious way, along with many animals and landscapes, always animated to perfection. On a sensory level, Brave is almost entirely a delight. On a plot level and character-wise – nothing special.

Final verdict:

Overall, in my humble opinion, Brave is Pixar trying too hard. When you’ve built your brand on delivering on your promises, it’s devastating when you come up short. The film that starts off big and promising soon diminishes into a rather wee, schematic fairy tale with a heroine who is supposed to be kick-ass and then she isn’t because it was WRONG all the way. Yes, boys and girls, her mum did know better from the very start. Ha, show me a child, let alone a teenager, who wouldn’t be pissed off with such an ending. I myself was expecting so much more.

Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

I got this book from rameau - thank you very much for your generosity and kindness!

Form: e-book, Kindle edition
Genre: sci-fi fairy tale
Target audience: YA

Synopsis:

Being a cyborg in New Bejing means being a second class citizen. Cinder knows it only too well – she has to work and earn not only her living but also the living of her small family, consisting of her stepmother and two stepsisters, Peony and Pearl. Fortunately Cinder is an extremely gifted robotics mechanic (not unlike little Anakin Skywalker), already renowned in the city despite her young age. One day even prince Kaito, the heir apparent to the imperial throne, pays her a visit in her little shop. He has an android to repair – an old one he keeps only for sentimental reasons. Or so he claims.

Cinder finds the prince very handsome, very kind and even funny. She is afraid to admit that she falls for him head over heels - after all she has a snowball in hell chance to be the right bride for a future emperor. She is over 36% artificial, she has no money to speak of and her stepmom simply hates her guts. Still a cyborg can dream, can't she? Well...soon enough her dreams must disappear - Peony, the nicer of her stepsisters, accompanies her to a local landfill site and falls ill. She catches a virus of lethumosis, a mysterious disease similar to the bubonic plague - incurable and very deadly. Of course Peony’s mother blames Cinder for it and decides to make her stepdaughter “volunteer” as a scientific guinea pig. So far none of those survived. The stepmom thinks she is so clever - not only she gets rid of Cinder, she is also paid for it. Sounds like a sweet deal but...Cinder returns. And she strikes back. ;)

What I liked:

The originality. It is not easy to work with such a well-known stuff as Cinderella and still produce an original book. Every kid and their parent can correct you (or at least have some remarks) but I must admit I was sold as soon as I started this one. New Beijing. Cyborgs. A handsome heir apparent who doesn’t want to be an emperor at all. A nice teenager girl who earns her living as an open-air market mechanic instead of whining, flirting, swearing and combing her hair. It was actually funny but reading about Cinder I thought all the time about Luke Skywalker or his dad. I couldn’t help it. Luke and Cinder were both orphans raised by foster families. They both had some shadowy secrets to discover. Cinder, like both Skywalkers, had a bionic limb (but no, she didn’t get hers because she fought her evil Sith lords with a light saber ;) ) and liked tinkering with robots. She also had a snarky android friend. The book, like the Star Wars movie, was peppered with funny scenes. Still it remained original.

Cinder and her love interest, prince Kaito, are real assets here. Both, despite their young age (late teens) have suffered serious losses and have to shoulder great responsibilities. Both are pressurized into choosing between an evil and another evil. I liked their slow romance a lot – no ugly love triangle, not many adventures, a YA book with just one kiss and still it kept me riveted! Well done! Making Levana an evil Lunar queen was a great move. The author reverted the usual order, popular in such stories – here an adult woman is an aggressor and a young, inexperienced man – her victim. Mind you it is an YA book so you won't find any sordid details here - prince Kai just grits his teeth and soldiers on, poor thing.

The pace of narration was great –  not too quick, not to slow but you didn’t want to stop reading. I especially enjoyed the build-up toward that great annual ball and you see, that’s the beauty of a well-told story: you know Cinder will attend the ball although she repeatedly declines the prince's invitation, you know the prince will finally fall for her and she for him but still you are wondering how and when and for what reasons. That’s how a good fairy tale adaptation should work.

Finally the cover art -I like it a lot and I find it really suitable, especially the title font. It took me to the Moon and back...;)

What I didn’t like:

Firstly I was a tad surprised reading that Cinder, left without any schooling or tutoring at 11, was such a fantastic mechanic. If the author made her stepfather live a little bit longer all of it would be far more creditable. Even Anakin had to be taught this and that.

I admit the baddies were a shade too one-dimensional. This novel deserved something better than an all-evil queen-autocrat or a horrible full stop horrible stepmother. I do hope though that it will be improved in next installments – it is just the beginning, right?

I also was a bit disappointed by so few world building elements and minor glitches. We know there are many cyborgs in New Beijing but we are shown just Cinder and her problems. The Lunar queen comes with a visit but we know very little about the settlements on the Moon – how they became possible at all, what discoveries and technical inventions allowed that (apart from magic that is). Once again – plenty of material to be developed in other books. Hopefully in a creative way.

Final verdict:

I am definitely interested in reading the next part of Lunar Chronicles. Actually I am pretty curious what path Ms Meyer will choose: will she continue adapting the same fairy tale or will she tell another story?  No matter what her choice is, may the Force be with her...ehem...good luck!