Pixar's ownership of animation's coveted crown is now complete as they take the staples of once formidable parent Disney and make them their own. Brave returns to basics with a down the line idea straight out of Walt's story book. It's given the Pixar shine, a witch, a talking bear and an incredible voice cast. And with John Lassetter guiding the project forward, nothing has been left to chance.

Bearing a distracting resemblance to Rebekah Brooks, Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is a fiery young highlander whose despairing mother (Emma Thompson) is trying to coach the arrow-slinging tomboy in the ways of Scottish royalty. Meanwhile Merida's father (Billy Connolly) is to choose her prince at a meeting of the clans, and the available options are poor at best. A right royal ruckus follows and before you can say eye of newt, the family is torn and mother is behaving like a bear with a sore head. Literally.

Brave is terrific fun that ticks all the boxes for animated adventure: gung-ho youngster, family tension, magical mayhem, bold colours, exaggerated angles, a catchy tune, noise, love, honour, sadness and a full kilt of comedy. The impish side-kick is given a factor of three by way of Merida's impudent triplet siblings, the evil witch has gone corporate (hilariously, by the way). As neatly woven story lines are threaded together, battles internal and eternal play out as mother and daughter come to learn the value of trust.

If Brave wants for anything, it's the creative abandon that, until now, has been a signature of Pixar: super-dads, space stations, floating houses and the like. Yet this 'return to basics' is, paradoxically, a breakthrough that places Brave squarely in the heart of Disney land, which is no bad place to be. Thus you have the perfect marriage of old fashioned story telling with newly fashioned screen craft, cementing Disney Pixar's vanguard position in the rebooted Golden Age of Animation.

// COLIN FRASER
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