Brave (2012)

There's a moment early in Brave where Merida rides through the Scottish highlands at full gallop, her wild red curls catching the wind, and I genuinely felt something shift. Not just admiration for the animation, though that's warranted, but something more personal. There's an atmosphere to this film, a sense of place rooted in mist and stone and Celtic folklore, that gets under your skin if you've got any connection to that part of the world. I do. And it works.

What Pixar and Disney got right here, and it's worth saying clearly, is the decision to build the whole story around a mother and daughter rather than a princess and a prince. Merida isn't waiting to be swept off her feet. She's fighting tooth and nail against the very idea. That's a genuinely refreshing instinct for a Disney princess film, and Kelly Macdonald's voice performance brings real warmth and fire to the role. The emotional relationship between Merida and Queen Elinor is where the film lives and breathes. When it lands, it lands with sincerity. These two feel like an actual mother and daughter, stubborn and loving and deeply frustrating to each other in the way that only family can be.

The animation deserves its own paragraph. The highlands here feel alive. Misty glens, crumbling castle walls, flickering torchlight, and those iconic curls, rendered with a level of detail that still holds up well over a decade on. The setting isn't just a backdrop. It earns its place as part of the story. If you've ever stood on a hillside in the Highlands with the haar rolling in off the sea, you'll recognise something true in how this film looks. It reminded me a little of the textural ambition I admired in The Prince of Egypt (1998), where a landscape becomes something you feel rather than just observe.

But here's where I have to be honest, because Brave is also a film that holds itself back from being truly great. The middle section drags. Once the central curse is set in motion, the film leans heavily on chase sequences and physical comedy that repeat themselves without building much tension or meaning. The supporting clans, the rival lords and their sons, are broad comic caricatures who never develop beyond a single joke each. The magical mechanics that drive the plot feel convenient rather than earned, as if the story needed a shortcut and took it.

I kept thinking about how Pixar's very best work, the films that stay with you long after the credits roll, tend to have a structural tightness and a thematic clarity that Brave simply doesn't match. The rebellion-consequence-reconciliation arc is familiar enough that you need the execution to feel genuinely surprising, and too often here it doesn't. The film knows what it wants to say about listening and understanding between generations, it just doesn't always find the sharpest way to say it.

None of that makes Brave a bad film. It's a decent, heartfelt one. Admirable more than astonishing. It's proudly its own thing, a Celtic-flavoured fable that trusts its audience enough to centre familial love over romance, and that choice still feels worthwhile. For younger viewers especially, there's real emotional nourishment here. And for anyone with Scottish roots, or simply a fondness for windswept landscapes and the wail of pipes in the distance, it's an easy watch with genuine charm.

Three stars. A film I'm glad exists, even if I wish Pixar had sharpened it a little more.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2012  | Watched: 2026-04-22

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Brenda Chapman: The Prince of Egypt (1998)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)