Brave Reviews
Examiner.com
Kids will probably enjoy it for its beautiful design, but the adults in the audience will probably be wondering why Pixar decided to skimp on the story this time around.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Dial M For Movies
After a strong start introducing the main characters, in particularly the wonderfully animated Merida, Pixar's Brave stumbles and tumbles through an appalling screenplay.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
Schmoes Know
This was not the story that I was expecting or hoping for. Without giving anything away, bears figure prominently into this, more so than I would have liked. And I'm a fan of bears.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.8/5
The Vine
In the end it feels that destiny has passed by not just our heroine, but her vehicle too.
Hollywood.com
The film wanted to change the animated female's fate, but it didn't take any risks to do so.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Kansas City Star
"Brave" is less a feminist parable than a child's wish-fulfillment: Why can't Mommy be more like me?
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Boxoffice Magazine
Brave unfortunately wastes the studio's most winsome protagonist on their least interesting narrative.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Slant Magazine
Pixar's latest ultimately offers nothing more than a caricature of a well-worn conceit.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Cinema Autopsy
Everything about the first act of Brave suggests a story of independence and following your own path, so it is disappointing when it instead becomes a moralising tale about the importance of obeying your parents.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
San Diego Union-Tribune
It's disappointing that the team of writers, including Andrews and Chapman, failed to redefine what it means to be a heroine in big-budget animation.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Top CriticThe tone is uneven and more often morose than joyful. The pacing is slow and at times almost tedious. The end result is something that feels like it was put together from a jumble of Disney clichés tacked onto the skeleton of Beauty and the Beast.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
It's enjoyable, consistently beautiful, fairly conventional, occasionally surprising and ultimately disappointing.
Boston Phoenix
After the successive triumphs of the past decade, it's hard to accept anything less than transcendence from the animation studio.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
NYC Movie Guru
Great CGI animation doesn't compensate for forgettable characters, an uneven tone, and a banal story that fails to pack enough of a comedic, imaginative and emotional punch.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5.872/10
At the Movies (Australia)
Merida's curly red hair is an animator's dream, but not much else in this rather laboured fairy tale is memorable.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
At the Movies (Australia)
This is one of the least exciting Pixar films and they're usually so imaginatively written; this is pretty banal.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Illinois Times
Tepid Story Undercuts Brave's Dynamic Visuals
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.0/4.0
A film that starts off big and promising but 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.
While the mother-daughter clashes may make the story "relatable," they drain it of its mythopoetic potential, turning what could have been a cool postmodern fairy tale into another family melodrama.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
This Celtic-themed story hews so closely to classic fairy-tale tropes, it's the studio's most Disney-fied production yet.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
