Brave

Pixar has been one of the most brilliantly run studios in Hollywood for some time.  They churned out movie after movie which grossed them over 100 million dollars, sold more in toys, garnered critical acclaim, and won awards.   Their last endeavor Cars 2 was the only blemish on an otherwise perfect record.  It seemed that everyone who worked there was passionate about their projects and wanted to be there. The only complaint really being that it was considered kind of a boys club, so what do they do, with their 13th movie they put in a strong female protagonist that's central issue deals with the relationship between mother and daughter.  From the outset Brave looked like a home-run but a major plot point in the second half changes this movie's fate and it becomes something different entirely.

Any of the first teasers that came out made it seem like it was going to be an intense mixture of adventure and magic.  But then those behind the scenes decided to not use any of the footage from the trailer in the movie.  Despite that even the first sequence laid the groundwork for an epic adventure tale.  The visuals are absolutely stunning in this movie and the music is enchanting.  It places you in the exact mood you need to be in for a movie that is all about a princess who changes her fate.

Nothing about the plot is all that ingenious when it comes to daughter being forced to marry against her will (On a side-note: I have been seeing a lot of female empowerment movies recently, you go girls).  Merida is an independent girl with the heart of a warrior and does not want to be married off just because of some tradition, while her mother has been training her to be queen her whole life.  Merida would much rather explore the outdoors and practice her archery on horseback all day.  From here the movie still has all the potential in the world to be something great and could very well be.

But then something happens, about halfway through the movie a major plot point occurs and throws any credibility the movie was building towards into the water.  I don't want to give the plot point away, as it is supposed to be a twist I think, but if you would like a hint please click here for everyone else just move on.  All of a sudden the movie moves away from female empowerment into a slapstick session, which was completely unnecessary as there are plenty of laughs everywhere else in the movie.  The toughest part about the plot point is it becomes the main focus of the story, so while I can say I liked everything about this movie except this one detail it becomes a MAJOR detail.  From here on to the end it seems that everything the movie was building to is forgotten in order to wrap the story up.

It almost feels as if Pixar doesn't care anymore.  Whether it is giving Larry The Cable Guy a whole movie, finding out where Sully and Mike matriculated from, or frankly giving the boys club a story about female empowerment. It seems there is less effort being put in at the studio to come up with groundbreaking ideas.  All of Pixar's movies before this have been about guys and boys and growing up and been told from that point of view.  Pixar's movies have been great in the past because they were writing from somewhere they know; you could feel a personal investment in the story.  While Brenda Chapman wrote the story and helped direct, the rest of her main staff are men.  So a story about a mother-daughter relationship being told from the perspective of boys may have been one of the problems with developing the full potential of the story.

The movie does come back around and the climax of the movie features some very touching scenes.  Plus I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up just a little bit with the Scottish music playing in the background and a little girl coming over to give her Mom a big hug and tell her that she loves her.  There is a beautiful movie in here somewhere evidenced by these last moments, the sweeping Irish landscape, and the beautiful music, but that one moment really turned off any momentum the movie built towards.  Even the plot points that occur following the twist are more believable.  It really is just frustrating they took the movie in that direction.  And after that there was no coming back for Brave.  B-

Men In Black 3

It has been 15 years since J was recruited by K to join the Men In Black and a decade since the last time we heard from these agents.  Time has not been kind to this franchise, which really should have just stopped after the first movie.  But after such a successful original story, and huge star power from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones you can't blame the producers for trying to recapture the magic from the original.  That is what Men In Black 3 feels like, an attempt to recapture the magic of the original instead of attempting to coming up with an original story.

Anytime a movie attempts time travel or goes to a tropical island viewers enter at their own risk, especially when the movie is a sequel.  Here J, must go back in time and save his partner from getting killed and put history back in its proper place.  So in this movie all of the fish out of water jokes from the first one are in relation to going back in time rather than learning about alien life on earth.  I can not think of a time traveling sequel that has ever been rewarding, so this movie is already up against a wall. 

The movie's humor relies on everything being dated.  That means that all the technology the agents use in the sixties are antiquated and bulky and therefore must be funny.  There are moment where it looks like there could be some genuine moments of levity, and they even touch briefly on the race issues of the sixties but are too quick to move on to a new device before any joke has the chance to settle in.  You can tell that the writing team for this movie had too many cooks in the kitchen and Etan Cohen tried pulling the best of the best instead of making every moment flow into the next one.

The bulk of the movie rests on Will Smith's back, because while K is a big piece of the puzzle, the role is shared by two different actors.  Smith seems like he is phoning this one in and is merely getting a paycheck to help his children do more projects.  Meanwhile Tommy Lee Jones literally disappears for half the movie, which may be due to the aging actor not being able to handle an action blockbuster like this anymore.  In his place is one of the few bright spots of the movie in Josh Brolin.  Brolin plays a dead ringer as a younger Tommy Lee Jones, with the good ole boy drawl and dry delivery down pat. Even if the younger actor is supposed to be in his late twenties and not his early forties the casting still works.

While Brolin was a nice surprise, what I was looking forward to most was Jermaine Clement as Boris the Animal.  I don't know what I was expecting out of him but I didn't get it.  Vincent D'Onofrio just did so spectacularly in the first one that I think they tried to replicate it.  Maybe I just wanted him to be a little goofier and I don't know bust out into song with Bret (Hi Bret), but that would be too much to ask for, I guess.  It seemed like they missed an opportunity with a brief appearance by Nicole Scherzinger or maybe I just wanted to see more of her leather dominatrix costume.  The most important part though may be Michael Stuhlbarg who provides some nice support as the last of his species who can see all the different possible futures which adds a little bit to the time traveling plot line.

Everyone keeps referencing a major past event in K's life, a moment which would turn out to be the climax of the movie.  With all that build up there was an expectation for a bigger moment.  That is this movie in a nut shell - bigger expectations.  And expectations weren't even that high for this movie, after all it was the third movie 15 years removed from the original that featured time traveling.  If you do go and see this movie, it may be a better idea to bring a neuralizer along and replace the two hours with a more pleasant memory like the one below.  D+