Disney Pixar’s Brave is not your typical princess movie. This isn’t a love story of how an ordinary girl falls in love with a prince to become a princess at the end of the movie but this movie is about Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) and is more of a cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for.

The basic premise is that Merida wants to change her fate meaning that she doesn’t want to be the stereotypical princess that speaks well, has excellent manners and is intelligent and expected to marry based on a match approved by her parents (Emma Thompson and Billy Connelly).

So Merida comes upon a witch (Julie Walters) who casts a spell that would change her fate but what she actually wishes is for her mother to change meaning change her mind about an arranged marriage.

Spoiler alert here. However, what happens is instead Merida’s mom, Elinor is turned into a bear. And this is where Brave actually starts to pick up. Elinor as a bear was cute and endearing and Brave becomes a mother-daughter love story as both come to appreciate the other.

Of course there is a time limit working against them that if doesn’t repair the pride-torn bond before the second sunrise.

I really wanted to love Brave but I just didn’t. The story was just okay and I wasn’t that emotionally invested in whether or not Merida would fix the spell.

And I thought Merida’s three brothers were annoying at first but when they were helping Elinor as a bear and Merida escape, they started to become endearing.

What really makes Brave work is the voice cast, led by Kelly Macdonald. Originally Merida was supposed to be voiced by Reese Witherspoon who I think would have been wrong for the part. The natural Scottish accent that Macdonald provides makes Merida a great Scottish heroine. Also, I could listen to Kelly Macdonald speak forever. I love her accent. And Emma Thompson is also great as Elinor while Billy Connelly, Craig Ferguson, Robbie Coltrane and Kevin McKidd were more stereotypical Scots.

It is too bad that Brave wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be but at least it was better than Cars 2.