by Jesus Ibarra

Special coupon for Dinuba Platinum Theatre at the end of this review.

Pixar’s latest animated film stars hopefully a new Disney princess, Merida. Set in Scotland during the 10th century, the princess defies the old age custom of marrying the first-born son of the clan chiefs under her father’s rule by competing for her own hand to avoid getting married. All this much to the chagrin of her mother, the Queen Elinor, who has been preparing her, her entire life as a princess.

Much of the beginning of the film has Merida questioning whether we can change our fate, and how it can be done. So when she has the opportunity to do so she takes it with disastrous results. I won’t give away the twist because I applaud Pixar for keeping it hidden until I watched the film. I will say it’s clever, providing a lot of the film’s humor and some of the more poignant moments that involve Merida’s family.

I wanted to watch this movie just so I could listen to Scottish accents for an hour and a half. I love those accents, and the time period in which this film is set.

I had expectations that this would be another kid oriented film with some very poignant lessons that adults can enjoy, and it did not disappoint. It had some of the best voice acting, and the animations were gorgeous that sold the more emotional moments in the film.

My favorite part of the film though is Merida herself. She is stubborn, willful, a talented archer, overall a more realistic and good depiction of what a young woman should be. She is an excellent addition to the Disney princess family. I hope that Disney continues this trend of having great and strong good female heroes for girls to look up too.

I won’t give anything else away because the plot is fairly straight forward with a very funny and interesting twist. Even if you don’t have kids, go watch this because it’s Pixar so you know it won’t just cater to kids, but have themes and sequences for everyone.

Check out the trailer on the movie website.

Brave is now playing at Dinuba Platinum Theatres 6. Showtimes can be found on their website.

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Jesus Ibarra is 20 years old and an ongoing contributor to our Teen Talk section; with a love of all media, he’s always on the lookout for the best finds.