Brave

Brave – 100Min – PG

Pixar does something new with their first feature focusing on a female lead character. Brave gives the Pixar studio another notch in its win column. They do not disappoint when it comes to the pains taking detailed world of medieval Scotland. From a technical standpoint this movie does an outstanding job of bringing to life these animated characters in a very fluid, lifelike smoothness. The 3D Aspects of the film do a good job of keeping the in your face shots to a minimum but deep in the forest and ruins add a depth that is exquisite. However the story is just ok. It does not pull out the same level of emotion as previous films did. Despite the average story it’s well worth a look and earns a green light.

Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is a young princess and is forced into marriage by Elinor (Emma Thompson), her mother, the queen. There is a tradition that each family send their eldest son to complete for the right to marry Merida. Merida’s father, Fergus (Billy Connolly), brings together three families to compete for the right to marry his daughter. Merida defies her mother and as first born of her family she claims the right to complete for her own hand. Merida’s defiant act causes a rift in her family and the Kingdom. She confides in an elderly wise woman who turns out to be a witch. With the old woman’s help Merida changes her fate and her mother into a bear. Together they work together to try and undo the spell and repair the damage to the peace among the families.

There seems to be no end to the wonderful things technical feats this studio can do. I really enjoyed watching the realism of the hair and fur of these characters. They did a wonderful job of bring to life the lands scape and the people in this world. The directing team of Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and Steve Purcell seem to all share the same focus on making these visuals for this film really special. What really socks me is that this team also wrote the story. How can a team of such talented people only bring forth an average story? Steve Purcell’s previous work was about animated cars that moved me more than this story about real live people did. All of them seemed to be more focused on showing us a fantastic setting then telling us a good story.

With the average story and all it does break new ground as it focuses on a female lead character who is strong and passionate and completely loveable. The story does focus on how important family is and that communication and understanding are the most important things in families. Heck it made me want to pull my bow and arrows out of storage and go down to the range and fire off a few rounds.

Spoiler warning!!!! anrheithwyr o dan y ddolen hon!!!!

Go to google translate to translate this phrase

I loved how the three brothers did not need any voices. They were very Harpo Marx-esque: completely expressive and completely silent. Nice touch and it would be hard to give them a voice that did not take away from the expressiveness. Even as bears they were well-played.

I loved how well they portrayed conversation between Merida and her mother. They were not speaking to each other and they edited it in such a way so it was seamless between them. It was a tad frustrating that all of this could have been avoided if they would have had that conversation for real. But it would not make for a good movie. Hummmm lets think about this, a Disney movie where the kids and the parents live and get along. Yawn.

I liked the connection of the legend of how the Kingdom was fractured and Merida’s same circumstances. It’s her work that mends the fracture on both story fronts. It was really well constructed but the story lacked a sense of sprit.


What do you think of Pixar’s new direction of strong female lead? Does she work as a lead, if not why?

Men in Black III

Men in Black III – 103min – PG-13

The Men in Black are back, and this “time” it’s personal. The team, for the most part, are back and are performing at the level we saw in the original MIB. It’s about time (no pun intended, that time). It has been way too long between films and I was beginning to think we were done with the series. I really liked the first one and was completely let down by the second one. I was afraid that the second one was such a stink burger that they decided to let it die and pretend the series never existed. I am happy to say that they have brought this series back, I am unhappy to say that it was really only as good as the first one. This is a yellow light film.

The moon has a prison for all of the aliens that the MIB uses for its most dangerious criminals. Among them is a one-armed Alien, Boris (Jemaine Clement). He breaks out and seeks revenge on the MIB agent that took his arm in his arrest, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). Agent J (Will Smith) and K are doing their job when they realize that Boris has set a trap for them. Boris decides that the best way to get rid of K is to go back in time and alter it so that he saves his arm and take out K. J realizes that something is bothering his partner so he investigates who Boris is and what why he wants to harm K. During the investigation K gets ripped out of time and J is the only one who can remember him. The new head of MIB Agent O (Emma Thompson) tells him that whatever has happened K is in the middle of it. J rushes back in time to save his friend and runs into K as a young man (Josh Brolin) together they work to save the earth and K of the future.

The cast have some really great material to work with, the story is a solid formula based on the first one, a good mix of humor, effects and action. Brolin’s spot-on impression of a young K is worth the price of admission. But it seemed like they were trying to find their feet with these characters again. It almost seemed forced. There was nothing wrong with it but it did seem to come off as rediscovering the roles after 14 years.
 
Barry Sonnenfeld (director) made this seem to keep the same pace as the previous films. Etan Cohen (writer) took the original material as a base and took it in a new direction. This attempt was at best a reawakening of the series, now they need to use this momentum in the series in a bigger and brighter direction. I hope they don’t wait another 14 years to make another one.

Spoiler warning!!! I will flashy thingy you if you click on this link!!!!!

Time travel is a problem. For instance the guy who gives J the time travel devices say oh you must have been there that’s why you can remember, tell me all about it when you get back. If J goes back in time he is going to rewrite the future why would the guy know anything about what he did in the previous timeline? I know I am a geek and should really not look at stuff like that.

The technology they used was a bit too high tech for the past, I see where they did try and cover the fact that the technology should be high tech but really old. The motorcycles were way to advanced and should have been different.

The way they cover up the fact that Rip Torn is no longer in the series by having he die was perfect it gave Emma Thompson a chance to elegise in a different language. Very funny work, but mostly because of J’s reaction, And K’s eulogy was perfect.

Maybe my expectations are too high to expect that a third installment should have been better than the previous films. Do you expect movie sequels to be better than the previous film or are just meeting the expectations of the previous films ok?