Most obviously, it's the first Pixar film with a female protagonist, and the first one aimed at a primary audience of young girls. "Brave" feels like a departure from Pixar tradition in many ways, and a picture whose success or failure at the box office will likely determine the studio's future direction. Even watching "Brave" at a Manhattan theater with supposed state-of-the-art projection equipment, the 3-D image looked muddy and dim, and the extra depth added nothing significant. And I emphatically recommend not spending the extra bucks for 3-D glasses. There's a reason that the studio's best films have focused on animals or inanimate objects. Even there, though, I have reservations: I pretty much hate the squeaky-looking kewpie-doll creatures that Pixar's animators have always conjured up to represent human figures. Capturing the haunted greens, golds, blues and grays of a Scottish castle and the deep forest around it - the setting is unspecific but vaguely medieval - "Brave" is another pictorial triumph for Pixar. Let's get past the invidious comparison right now: There is no similarity between the lovingly detailed picture-book animation of "Brave" and the insipid primary colors of the cheaply produced "Dora" cartoons. Is it OK to wish that they were actually, y'know, good, and not just good for us? As the father of a ferocious and imaginative 8-year-old female human who has never once worn a cardboard tiara, I'm glad they exist. Both "Brave" and the Dora franchise represent honorable - and desperately needed - attempts to craft alternative role models, and alternative entertainment options, for girls who yearn to break out of the pink-and-peach prison of princess culture. No, listen - in all seriousness, there are reasons to be grateful for both of them.
If that doesn't quite sound like fulsome praise, you're on the right track. Merida, the fiery Scottish princess voiced by Kelly Macdonald in Pixar's new animated adventure "Brave," belongs to the same category as Dora the Explorer, Nickelodeon's bicultural cartoon heroine.
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