Brave

Pixar, Pixar, Pixar. I have a strange relationship with that company. That is to say, I don't really see what the big fuss is about.

I mean, all the Pixar movies I've seen have been good, but none of them have really been fantastic. And I can't really even list any notable flaws and faults in them: I just can't get into 'em for some reason.

With that said: Brave. It's a movie about the red-haired Scottish princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald), who strives to be a warrior like all the menfolk around her, picking a special affinity for archery. This puts her in conflict with her mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), who wants a proper daughter who minds her manners and marries a dashing prince.

Those who expect Brave to be an adventure with a you-go-girl protagonist will be disappointed. It's actually a pretty serious character piece focused on the relationship between Merida and her mother. I was actually surprised by how few locations the movie has, fooled by how proudly they were flaunting highland vistas early on.

I love how the movie looks and sounds. I mean, when I saw Tangled, my mind was blown by the fact that Disney managed to animate Rapunzel's hair. Now comes Merida and her red locks, and daumn, that's some pretty hair. As alluded above, the environments are really beautiful too. The music is fine on the ears (aside from the somewhat bland halfway-through song), and I can't help but adore everyone's Scottish accents.

Usually in animated movies, I tend to be annoyed by the comedy side cast, and gravitate more strongly to the protagonists and antagonists, but Brave provides an exception to the rule. The menfolk and their clan politics and boisterous noise were the highlight of the film to me. King Fergus (Billy Connolly) is a perfection of what Disney attempted with their characterisation of Zeus in Hercules: a loud, dumb, but lovable father figure. The chieftains and heirs of clans MacGuffin, MacIntosh and Dingwall are all funny and memorable characters too.

The film's plot is kind of formulaic, but it only gets predictable once you figure which formulaic plot they're going for. As soon as the movie starts in earnest, I feel it starts to get weaker. Despite the very strong start, it just didn't hold up my interest for the second half.

Overall, it's a good movie that's definitely worth checking out for all fans of Pixar, animation in general, Scottish history, and Celtic music. It's not a masterpiece, and aside from the advances in animating curled hair, I don't think it's a milestone in anything, but it's a good way to spend ninety or so minutes.

Summer Wrap-up (Spider-Man and Batman)

A dramatic re-enactment of this post

It's been two and a half months since my last update. Lots of stuff has happened in my life during the summer (a trip to Malta and being approved for college, for example), but I've only seen two movies in the cinema. I didn't write reviews because the first one I saw was so bad I couldn't make myself review it, and then I felt like I couldn't review the second until I'd reviewed the first.

To catch up and get started with the autumn season, here's my thoughts on them:

The Amazing Spider-Man:

A wretched pile of shit, and the worst kind of superhero movie. The Amazing Spider-Man is a tale of Peter Parker as you've never seen him before: a bland non-character with no defining traits, whose role in the story and overall personality are whatever the writer feels like making them at any given moment. His stalker-crush Gwen Stacy falls in love with him for no adequate reason, other than because [insert your own Twilight comparison here].

The Lizard looks like crap and has motives almost as vaguely explored as Peter's. The story is bloated with way too many subplots, some of which never get any kind of resolution since this is assured to get a sequel due to the presence of Spider-Man in the title. Awkward pacing and dialogue, lame performances and so-so action scenes finish the unholy combination of elements which make up a movie that manages to only be the second-worst film I've seen this year because I happened to see This Means War.

Also, Peter Parker skateboards. Seriously, fuck this movie. Seeing Spider-Man raped like this, I can finally understand people who get really personally upset about Michael Bay's Transformers.

The Dark Knight Rises:

A worthy, if a bit shoddy, end to the trilogy, with surprisingly large ties to the Batman comics which the previous two movies seemed to be afraid of associating themselves with. The villains work damn well, the directing and dialogue are awesome, and the music is fantastic. The film drags a lot, though: it feels like it's two scripts mashed into one.

There are some minor plot holes that I only realised afterwards, and Batman still sounds really funny. The final twist about Bane is really unnecessary, and seems to only exist to please comic nerds. It was a really poor choice to undermine the climax of the film with that move. I really liked the ending, even if it was a bit cheesy and predictable.

Batman Begins ends up being my favourite of this series, because I really liked the Gotham in it, and it felt the most like a Batman movie.

The Avengers was my favourite superhero film of the summer, but it's such a different movie than The Dark Knight Rises that I don't think you can really compare them on any objective level. Apples and oranges.