Saw it on Friday at a packed 11pm show, with some kids too, perhaps a majority of young ladies. Mid-evening shows were sold out! This continued on Saturday as it seems to be moving to a $65M+ weekend, a bit better than Wall-E. It’s TM score at this hour has settled down to 74%, on par with Cars. If this was Pixar’s ‘B’ team being given its chance, there is your reason.
The short. La Luna. It was beautiful (edited from the first time I saw it, where I found it “good”), not One Man Band or Presto quality, but very satisfying and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I feel that it’s the best short since Presto and nearly matches its quality. People clapped and talked about it on the way out of the theater.
Crowd report. Expectations were high, despite reviews in the two major area papers and USA Today that the story wasn’t quite up to snuff with Pixar standards, 3 stars out of 4, etc… These papers were all saying ‘go see it anyways’. The previews, as mentioned here, were not overwhelming, and yes, somewhat cheesy. But as has always been the case with Pixar, they take care not to really spoil the movie experience by revealing everything, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Still, Up’s was breathtaking and Cars2 preview was bland, this was in between. So the 11pm show was nearly sold out too. People were getting and laughing at more jokes than I was, and this was happening frequently. Men were laughing too. They walked out at 1 am with the attitude that they were going to tell their friends positive things and I didn’t see any yawning. Some people stayed to the end to watch thru the credits, but only a few. There was a dedication to Steve Jobs. No one yelled or clapped in appreciation when the main Direction/Production scrolled, as does often happen because these were not names they had ever heard of, and Exec Prod credits to Lassiter et al didn’t quite cut it. There were some Pixar fans there, but the town I saw it in was in a somewhat bland area of the Silicon Valley, and not in the area where I live, which is chock full of Dreamworks North employees. There usually are real solid Pixar fans that clap en masse, and they weren’t at this location.
Crowd Report Part II. On the 2nd Saturday the theater was half full. There was a lot of group laughing at the same gags. Fifty people stayed to the very end of credits since I was viewing in my local theater, I would imagine that 100 had been there the week before, since it’s Apple territory.
Review. The trade papers and local rags got it right, about the story not being Pixar’s usual, so a ‘B to B+’. And yes, animation quality, obviously rated an ‘A’. And yes, characterization quality ‘A’. And yes, the environment and the research that went into the canvass, an ‘A’. The music meshes very nicely with the drama. What Draik said earlier, the [spoil]shadow[/spoil] gags were perhaps the funniest and most clever of devices. There were a lot of violent smack scenes (ala Warner Bros.) to satisfy the males and this was ok, but not like Pixar, altho they are famous for their chase scenes and there are chase scenes galore, much of the violence was gratuitous. As someone mentioned, there could have been more haunting moments, with the castles and the [spoil]witch, who was evil ‘neutral’, meaning she wasn’t ‘bad’[/spoil], and I liked her character and the [spoil]answering machine[/spoil] cauldron. This is a personal story, like in Up, don’t expect the world, Scotland or the kingdom to be saved. Other reviewers here dumped on the movie’s pace, and that wasn’t a problem for me. There was a point halfway thru where I said to myself “They haven’t dropped the ball yet with the story, even part of the way”. But the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I would like. There aren’t two full, enmeshed stories here as in Nemo, but there is a back story (a fairy tale within a fairy tale) that enmeshes itself into the conclusion. Btw, when that [spoil]stone fell on the bad bear[/spoil] it was annoyingly anticipated, in several parts and for like several minutes. It fell sorta flat, literally and figuratively. The queen said that she had been [spoil]changed by the ordeal, and the princess said she was too and now loved her mother and cried, but she doesn’t really backpedal and let us know what about her mother she is now ready to accept. Edit: on 2nd viewing, Merida and her mother agreed to listen to each other. “You can change your Fate by listening to your heart” seems to have been the message.[/spoil]
HowToTrainYourDragon vs. Brave. We know that the DW movie is a good bit better, but let me tell you where Pixar exceeded their competition: music, animation quality, characterization and character animation. Kids didn’t grow into idiotic adults with annoying accents in Pixar’s movie. But DW showed that all kids talked like American kids and were smart. When you grew older you got stupid. That’s an 80’s sitcom idea and it’s annoying and very unoriginal. Also in HTTYD, the gargantuan dragon at the end was just too big, while Pixar settled for a non-magical creature, a bear, lacking stratospheric dimensions.
Men in Brave. The older men were kinda dumb, like the ones in HTTYD, but the younger men, when given the chance to actually speak, [spoil]sided with Merida[/spoil], which was a nice touch. I mean it was a movie directed for women to offset criticism about previous Pixar films and they made sure that all men weren’t made out to be dunderheads.
The toilet jokes. Well, one comes straight from Braveheart(and after you see Brave you might bet they would have liked this other title if it weren’t already taken). Some of the nakedness followed the story and was inevitable. There fortunately weren’t any fart or poop jokes, be glad of that! Potty jokes are cheap, easy to make, other funny jokes take time, especially to sew into the story. TS3 had two potty jokes and they were gratefully subliminal.
I was disappointed that the writers didn’t take the opportunity to show that the feminine skills the princess’s mother taught her [spoil]could be useful in resolving the main conflict[/spoil], instead of being an entirely unwanted waste of time. There wasn’t any emphasis on [spoil]sewing[/spoil], for instance. I don’t even remember the princess doing that amongst all her swashbuckling bravado! They should have shown it instead of hiding it like some boring female task you don’t want to see. I’ma guy and I can and do sew, and even bought a sewing machine, and you better not try to mess with me. And maybe I’m dense but I just didn’t get the final resolution of the conflict! You know, the [spoil]Fate[/spoil] stuff, I hope to watch it again. Edit: after second time around I seem to have gotten it, but it just didn’t stick out much and failed to impress me much. This is a well tread Western style philosophy of life, perhaps it will appear novel in the Orient.
Rating. 2.75-3 out of 4 stars. Since it seems impossible to avoid comparing to other Pixar films, I would rate this movie a tad less then A Bug’s Life, but since I seem to like this (Bug’s) movie more than most people at this forum do, most of you will like Brave better. Bug’s usually rates at the lower end of Pixar movies, somewhere near Cars.
You might want to stay till the very end of the credits. The movie isn’t quite really over till then…
