Brave review

Brave (PG, 100 mins)
Director: Mark Andrews
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Pixar’s 13th feature, a magical Scotland-set adventure that represents their first fairytale, is a triumphant return to form for the animation studio following the uncharacteristically poor Cars 2.

Though it’s the first Pixar film with a female lead, Brave develops along the lines that many a Disney princess fable does, where an independently minded character who yearns for something more in their life gets more than they bargained for in a be-careful-what-you-wish-for sort of way.

That lead is Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald), a flame-haired princess who is a bit fed up with the expectations placed upon her by her parents; the king (Billy Connolly), who years before lost his leg to a savage bear that still supposedly roams the land, and queen (Emma Thompson), who wants Merida to comport herself in a more princess-ly way.

She’d much rather be a warrior but instead finds herself betrothed, with a clan gathering organised to find her a suitable husband, the clan chiefs presenting their buffoons of sons to win Merida’s hand, much to her annoyance.

Distancing herself from the goings-on, Merida stumbles across a witch from whom she gets a potion designed to change her fate. This leads to a major plot point around the halfway mark that is better left unspoiled, but let’s just say that fates are indeed changed.

What follows is a film about communication between parents and children, and listening to each other’s point of view, even as it deepens into a stirring mythology. Visually it’s an indisputable masterpiece, with every facial nuance and blade of grass and patch of heather alive with the shimmer that $200m worth of computer animation provides. A glorious Patrick Doyle score and a couple of splendid songs are just gravy.

The decision to use predominantly Scottish actors for the voices is an endlessly sensible one, and we can only imagine the kind of horrors the original choice for Merida, Reece Witherspoon, may have inflicted on our ears. Luckily we don’t have to, since the perfectly cast Macdonald combines spirit and warmth to create one of Pixar’s most memorable human characters.

Connolly is a delight, as are the trio of clan chiefs, voiced by Robbie Coltrane, Craig Ferguson and the especially good Kevin McKidd, who also gets to add his Doric tones to his chieftan’s near unintelligible son. Even the non-Scots like Thompson and Julie Walters as the witch with a big part to play in the plot get it just right.

In particular, it’s the sense of Scottish-ness that Pixar absolutely nails, from the visual majesty to the smallest vocal intonations. You couldn’t call it realistic exactly, since it’s a medieval fantasy, but still it’s one of the most authentic Hollywood portrayals of Scotland you’re likely to see, deftly sidestepping the pitfalls of going all Brigadoon on us.

If a criticism is to be levelled, it’s that perhaps it’s a bit thin and one-note when it comes to the plot, that perhaps it resolves a bit easily, neglecting the depth of theme and character that graces the very best of Pixar.

But the flipside of that is that it chugs along at a lick, with little to no flab and a single mindedness of purpose that suitably reflects Merida’s character, with Pixar once again showing that when it comes to animation, even though they're not perfect, they're still the best in the business.

Toy Story 3 review

Toy Story 3 (U, 108 mins)
Director: Lee Unkrich

★★★★★

If ever there were a lingering doubt that Pixar Animation is the most consistently excellent studio in Hollywood today, that shred is obliterated by the release of Toy Story 3. Fifteen years on from the original Toy Story, their commitment to the storytelling crafts is unyielding.

Toy Story may have been the first film ever to be created entirely on a computer, but it wouldn’t have made half the impact it did without a rock solid screenplay to support it. Toy Story 2 came along four years later and taught us that there’s nothing more important on heaven or earth than spending time with the people that we love. It remains, to this day, one of the greatest achievements in the history of cinema.

Since then the alchemists at Pixar, surely through some sort of Faustian pact, have elevated the animated art to such masterful levels that the only danger going in to Toy Story 3 is how it could possibly live up to the first two instalments.

Astonishingly, not only is it a match, it might even be the best of the three. No trilogy in history has managed to start with a masterpiece and then get progressively better; not Star Wars, not The Godfather, not Lord of the Rings.

It opens with an action scene that serves as the perfect reintroduction to characters we may not have encountered in a decade, as Woody the cowboy (voiced by Tom Hanks) and space ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), along with all the other toys belonging to young Andy, get involved in a wild west/sci-fi adventure in Andy’s imagination.

But this turn out to have been a memory from several years before, and Andy has put away childish things and is about to go off to college. He’ll only be taking Woody with him, which means it’s either the attic or the bin for the rest of the toys.

They actually end up at a nursery that at first glance seems like a place where they’ll never be outgrown. Most of the toys want to stay and get played with but, for Woody, Andy is all that matters. What follows is a series of escapes, rescues, action and comedy that’s quite simply perfect in every detail.

What becomes apparent, and it’s something we may not have consciously realised before, is that these toys - these computer programs - have become some of the most beloved characters in movie history. We’re saying goodbye to friends we’ve made and over the course of 15 years and this allows Toy Story 3 to hit emotional highs even Pixar hasn’t achieved before, because we’ve not had this level of relationship with their characters before.

What we don’t get is much time between Woody and Buzz, but by now their friendship is well enough established, and Woody deserves to take his place with the greatest movie heroes, in noblest sense of the word, alongside George Bailey and Atticus Finch.

It’s possibly not the most original of the three, but it’s certainly the funniest, the darkest and the most emotionally challenging but at the same time satisfying. It goes to places and explores ideas about the very nature of existence and fully realised stories containing such thematic richness are incredibly rare.

Pixar’s achievement is most remarkably demonstrated during action sequences so rooted in, and revealing of, character that all other action films this year are rendered irrelevant. And it creates, in its most perilous moments, a meditation on death as profound as anything by Bergman, and a sense of mortality that will have us all looking into the abyss.

That’s it’s the best film of the year by a great distance is so obvious it barely merits mentioning, but there’s something bigger at work here. More than mere movies, Pixar has now created things to live our lives by. Toy Story 3 speaks to us all about the fundamentals of life and death, love and friendship, and it’s as essential as oxygen.

Shrek Forever After review

Shrek Forever After (U, 93 mins)
Director: Mike Mitchell

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The first film ever to win the Oscar for best animated feature returns for its fourth and supposedly final cinema outing, and it’s probably fair to say that it’s time to let the sun set gracefully on the adventures of the big green ogre with the soft Scottish brogue.

What began as fresh and subversive almost a decade ago had become stale and money-driven by the time of the atrocious Shrek the Third three years ago. All signs were pointing to a series that was experiencing its death rattle, one that long ago abandoned storytelling ambition for fleeting pop culture recognition and the easiest of kid-pleasing devices. Compared to what Pixar was doing, it had become little more than an embarrassment.

Shrek Forever After reverses the slide to a certain extent even if early signs are not good that this fourth entry will be anything other than ogre poo jokes. But it takes an unexpected early turn with a flashback in which the king and queen of Far Far Away (John Cleese and Julie Andrews) are about to hand their kingdom over to the treacherous Rumpelstiltskin in exchange for the curse on their daughter, Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), being lifted.

But just as they're about to sign the contract, they learn that Fiona has been saved by Shrek (Mike Myers), as happened in the original movie, leaving Rumpel with a grudge against Shrek. Back in the present, Shrek and Fiona are living happily ever after with their babies. But Shrek is discontented with domestic bliss and longs for the days when he a terrifying ogre instead of a tourist attraction.

So when he’s tricked by Rumpelstiltskin into signing a contract that allows him to be a proper ogre for a day, he has to give Rumpel a day of his life in return and the ‘curly-toed weirdo’ takes the day he was born. If Shrek never existed, Princess Fiona was never saved and so Rumpelstiltskin inherited the kingdom, and Shrek has only until sunrise the next day to find Fiona and have her fall in love with him or he’ll cease to exist.

Though it borrows liberally from It’s a Wonderful Life and Back to the Future, at least with a recognisable plot there’s something to hold on to here. By not relying too heavily on references and in-jokes, Shrek Forever After is free to tell a proper story, even if the real laughs dried up long ago.

But there are some nice visual jokes and throwaway lines and the fine animation is good for making the most of facial expressions and well timed gags, while the always strong voice cast that also sees the return of Eddie Murphy as Donkey and Antonio Banderas as a well-fed Puss In Boots.

It all makes for an agreeable effort that falls somewhere between cynical cash-in and genuine attempt to send the franchise out on a dignified note. Don’t expect any Oscars this time round, but at least Shrek leaves the stage with his head held high.