‘BRAVE’

Declaring early that she will be nobody’s queen but her own, Merida, the flame-tressed Scottish princess at the heart of this she-ro’s quest, is completely on trend within a spate of revisionist fairy tales. After dispatching her suitors at an archery competition, Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) embarks on an adventure that pivots around the fractured relationship with her mom. As refreshing as it is to see family dynamics, rather than romance, define the fulcrum of the story, the tale that unfolds isn’t the most sophisticated of the Pixar canon. The conflicts, magic spells, chase sequences and reconciliations feel strangely by-the-book for a studio so well known for throwing the book out entirely. “Brave” is attractive enough to be a worthy diversion - an accomplishment Merida herself would no doubt dismiss as shallow.

‘SAVAGES’

A candy-colored black valentine to titillation, garish brutality and groovy post-fin-de-siecle excess, this ode to cinema’s most exploitative pleasures finds Oliver Stone chronicling America’s dark side at its most sun-kissed. As protagonist O (Blake Lively) explains in the detached, So-Cal voice-over that threads through the film, she has been living in a blissed-out menage a trois in Laguna Beach with Chon and Ben, marijuana dealers who grow the the best product in the country. When they come into the sights of aMexican cartel, O is kidnapped and they become embroiled in a battle. Casting Ben and Chon’s struggle as a mom-and-pop operation against a big-box store, the director makes an otherwise throwaway crime story chime with real-time politics, from the recession to the recent victory of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico. The perversities, predilections and pitiless viciousness that drive “Savages” aren’t for the faint of heart, but those who partake of the cinematic substances on offer are likely to catch a strong, if immediately forgettable, buzz.

OUT THIS WEEK

“2 Days in New York”; “The Watch”; “The Queen of Versailles”; “Dark Horse”; “Comes a Bright Day”; “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” (1977); “Doctor Who Classic: The Claws of Axos Special Edition”