Tag: Julie Walters

Brave

I decided to take the kids to see the new PIXAR offering. I’ve not been disappointed by a PIXAR offering yet. Can they keep the record going with:

Brave

“Sorry, I don’t speak Bear.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Princess doesn’t like how her life is going to engages the services of a friendly witch to try and change things

See it if you like: Beautifully animated fairy tales

Set in historic Scotland, this is a huge departure for PIXAR. I think like everyone I have fair expectations from this particular company and usually it’s for  something bright and colourful with plenty of laughs and several layers. Brave breaks this template.

The voice cast are suitably impressive with Kelly MacDonald as the princess Merida, Emma Thompson as her mother and Billy Connolly as her dad. John Ratzenberger is, of course, present as he is in all the PIXAR films.

It’s the visuals that set this film apart from the rest of those from the same studio. Rather than just being bright, or detailed, or well animated, Brave is simply beautiful. The first obvious example of this is Merida’s hair – ginger curls that move ridiculously naturally in much the way that the showpiece tresses of Aki Ross in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within blew people’s (OK, animation geeks’) minds back in 2001.

Beyond that, the outdoor scenes are simply breathtaking. Rather than just being simple sets, life seems to have been breathed into every blade of grass, clump of moss, shrub and leaf. It all moves, even if nearly imperceptibly in cases, but enough to make it all seem to much richer than – in my opinion – any scenery in a CGI film before. The thing is, unless you’re looking for it it’s something you’d not notice simply because it is so good.

So the visuals set a new standard. How about the story?

Well… here’s where I was less impressed. It is a simple tale, and more of a traditional fairy story than any of the films PIXAR have done before. They’re usually a company to break the mould, not come up with new contents for it. There are no real twists or surprises and it seemed a little over-long to me.

Little Miss seemed to enjoy it, though Little Mister (he is 4 and the film’s rated PG) stated several times “I don’t like this film”, I think mainly as some of the scenes with the bears fighting were quite scary for him. Oh, and the witch (Julie Walters). Having said that, on another day I know he’d have been fine.

It just didn’t grip me with incredible imaginative new-ness the way that Toy Story or Monsters Inc. did which is a shame. It most certainly isn’t a bad film, but other than the staggering work they’ve done with the graphics it’s no modern classic either.

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Gnomeo & Juliet

Another trip to the cinema with the kids. We needed something entertaining enough to engage the little one without sending us mad. That ruled the painful-looking Yogi Bear flick out, so we settled on:

Gnomeo & Juliet

“Let’s go kick some grass!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Shakespeare with pottery.

This turned out to be a great choice. Superb cast, tons of humour, near-constant action and bright colours made it ideal for all four of us.

The plot follows Shakespeare’s original fairly well, to a point, and some of the dialogue is a direct pastiche of the Bard’s work. Gnomeo (James McAvoy) is a blue garden gnome living in the garden of Mr Capulet (voiced by Richard Wilson). He falls for Juliet (Emily Blunt), a red gnome living next door in Miss Montague’s (Julie Walters) garden.

Of course, the owners and therefore the gnomes are deadly enemies. We’re not limited to little rotund porcelain midgets, though. There are plastic flamingos, concrete animals and a cute little toadstool as well. The imagination of the creative team is incredible with amazing attention to detail and beautiful ideas being thrown up time after time.

If there’s a downside to the film it’s that all the music is by Elton John and it’s not exactly my favourite genre. In fairness, a lot of it is reworked into the background. As the film goes on, the songs themselves are replaced by background instrumentals. Right up to the end credits when a voice from Hell takes over and cuts into the eardums like a chainsaw. I think it’s Ellie Furtado and it’s horrendous.

Gnomeo & Juliet is fun, bright and funny on enough levels to make it entertaining for the whole family.

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