I thought this looked quite good when I saw an advert for it, so when Aum and I were at a loose end for something to do yesterday, I thought I'd take him to see it. We went to the Trafford Centre: as it was the summer holidays it was packed, and we ended up with pretty naff seats, but at least we weren't on the front row.
The film tells the story of Merida, a young Scottish girl (I can only presume she is a young teenager) who is due to be found a suitor for marriage determined by the result of a challenge that she must set the eldest son of each of the three neighbouring clans. Fond of shooting arrows, riding her horse, and generally defying being a 'proper princess', she is horrified at the idea of getting married, and tries to persuade her mother to change her mind. As could be expected, her mother is having none of it, and wants her to stick to tradition and become a lady to uphold the family name.
At a loss for what to do, Merida follows a trail of willo-the-wisps (supposed to determine your fate) and stumbles across a cottage belonging to a witch, who she asks for a spell to change her mother. Little does she realise quite how literal the spell is though, as her mother turns into a bear, that she will be stuck as permanently after two sunrises, unless the troubled pair can 'mend their broken bond'. This seems like quite a random transformation, if it wasn't for the fact that a rogue bear named Muldoon mauled Merida's father when she was younger, and so she knows he will do anything to kill her! So ensues the chaos of having to hide a huge bear inside a castle, whilst trying to solve the puzzle to break the spell.
There were lots of laughs for both young and old and, as with most animated films nowadays - a host of famous voices to try to guess before the credits rolled. It was nice to have a children's film based in the UK for once, and also good that it made use of traditional Scottish folklore and music, which I think will be informative to younger viewers.The only stipulation I had with this was the clichéd dialogue between mother and daughter (it was all very 'it's not fair!'/ 'life isn't fair, you have responsibilities') and also that the fearsome Muldoon was indeed that - pretty bloody scary! The film was a PG though, so I guess that was the reasoning behind the rating. Worth a cheeky watch though.
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