First of all, I'm not a "hater" that tries to critic everything he sees. Actually I'm the opposite. But all what I just saw here (with the best predisposition) was signs of bad filmmaking. To make it short:
1) Based on the trailer, signs in the streets and SPECIALLY the first 20 minutes of the movie, you expect that archery will be a big part of the movie. They portrait her as this amazing archer who loves archery more than anything. Then it became useless, she barely uses her bow and the times she uses it it does not even do any good.
2) All the bear thing came completely out of nowhere. OK, sometimes twists (if they are well done) give a nice surprise. In this case was cliche and made it boring and close to ridiculous.
3) Title: Brave? Yeah, she was "brave" a couple times when she fought against her father for example.. but that's it. It's definitely not a major characteristic in her personality.
4) The tapestry and the way to take the spell away was... don't know how to describe it... it is like if the movie makers would be tired of thinking and wanted a quick and easy solution, and that was reflected.
I went with my eyes closed to the cinema (meaning I didn't need anyone to recomend it) just becuase it's Pixar and I TRUST Pixar. For me Pixar = good movie. This is the first time I get out completely disappointed. Of course animation was wonderful, as always. For a kid which is the only thing they need to see, it's good. For an adult, it's not.
I disagree with you on the fact that it's a bad movie. I wouldn't call it a bad movie. There are flaws, for sure, but not enough that movie isn't redeemable.
Firstly, I agree with you on the Tapestry thing. She just sort of jumped to the conclusion that it would fix the problem, and then it does at the end and they don't every mention how ridiculous her conclusion was. But it works out for them so *beep* it...
The bear thing did come out of nowhere(I assume you meant her mom changing into a bear, not the bear/Prince thing.), but it wasn't as if they hadn't explained that magic exists in this world, and there was enough bear symbolism up to that point that when it happens, it does come out of nowhere but to me it almost felt natural that they would've chosen that path, or were subtly setting up that path.
They didn't go far enough on too many important details that it felt rushed and definately uneven, but the plight of main heroine feels genuine, and in the end when everything turns out all right for her, it felt like she had earned it through her actions. She stood up for what she believed in, she fought a bear twice, faced a witch, fought her father, climbed that giant mountain. These things all say Brave-ry to me.
And yes the advertising in recent months focused on Merida as an excellent archer, always being seen with a bow, and in the beginning of the movie she does prove she's really good with a bow and it allows her to escape getting married sort of, but then its no longer about skill that makes her succeed, it's about her inner hero succeeding without her skill. Think of Back to the Future. Marty McFly is pretty good at skateboarding, they focus on it in the begining of the movie, and the posters always show him either skateboarding or playing guitar, but at the end of the movie, does he use skateboarding to save the day? No, he uses MArty McFly know how to get the job done. Same concept. You can't hold a movie to its advertising, its unfair.
Plus, they are quite obviously setting up to pull the rug out under our feet. I liked it.
Whilst, Brave is definitely one of Pixar's worst works, I disagree that it is their first disappointing movie. Cars was the point for me when Pixar began to lose its golden streak. It seems like a DreamWorks film, in that the premise is just a fairly generic journey from being selfish to selfless, and it is the first Pixar film to be made based on just John Lasseter's road trip experiences. Seriously? The creative driving force behind Pixar went on holiday and decided that he loved cars so much that that would be his next film?! It just comes across as self indulgent and is frankly a boring film. Brave is much better than Cars although it certainly doesn't hold up to the high standard that Pixar have created in films such as Toy Story, Wall-E, Up etc.