Brave

The Disney-Pixar collaboration “Brave” features the upstart’s first female protagonist, a willful Scottish mop of red hair named Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald), whose mum (the redoubtable Emma Thompson) and pop (Billy Connolly) arrange for three lords’ buffoonish sons to battle for her hand but who has the gall to want to choose her own love, whoever (and whenever) ...it may be. Macdonald and Thompson are too good for the whiny back-and-forth between Merida and Queen Elinor, a mélange of Glaswegian and Encino Birmingham High. The plot takes a turn to the bizarre when a woodcarving witch (Julie Walters) spells Elinor into a bear, which leads to tiresome computer-generated animal fights set to AC radio-ready tracks. “Brave” is dark and short on humor and not much fun for kids or adults. It screens with the deserving animated-short Oscar nominee “La Luna.”