Bolt
BY Ryan LaMarca / 2008-11-22
Last year's "Meet the Robinsons" left me with a new appreciation for the modern Disney cartoon features, and that feeling continues with the release of "Bolt," a movie that revives the spirit of great Disney classics. "Bolt" combines offbeat but entertaining characters, a heart-warming story, and impressive animation to make itself a worthy addition to the canon of classic Disney animated movies.
All his life, Bolt (voice of John Travolta) has been led to believe that he is a super-dog with a wide array of superpowers at his disposal. Little does he know he's really just an animal actor, and his actions to save his person, Penny (Miley Cyrus), are just the weekly adventures from his television series. However, when Bolt accidentally gets lost and is sent across the country, he comes to realize he doesn't have superpowers and is stranded from home. Eventually, Bolt meets an alley cat named Mittens (Susie Essman) and a hamster named Rhino (Mark Walton) who help teach Bolt what it means to be a real dog and help him find his way back home to Penny.
The overall story surrounding "Bolt" is very familiar in that it involves the hero getting lost, meeting friends, discovering who he is, and trying to get home. However, "Bolt" throws in some great new plot elements by having said hero be an animal actor. Although the movie itself was very good, I think it also could have worked as an action film with Bolt being an Underdog-like hero and having it follow the adventures as seen in the fictional "Bolt" television program. The film managed to pull off the action sequences from the show very well, and it was a nice little distraction for the first part of the film. Had you not seen anything about the movie before hand, you would have never realized what the movie would turn into.
The real heart of "Bolt" lies in its strong characters. Even with a runtime of ninety minutes, "Bolt" has its characters fleshed out and developed well. In fact, there are really only three main characters in the movie: Bolt. Mittens, and Rhino. As the case is with many similar cartoons, the supporting characters often steal the show. Mittens the cat is a character through which the movie really gets a chance to shine and show off its true writing ability. She's a street smart cat who seems cold-hearted at first but learns to really care for Bolt. On the other end of the spectrum is Rhino, the hamster. Rhino happens to be Bolt's biggest fan and while I found a lot of his antics less than enjoyable, I think his good outweighed his bad. His fawning over Bolt got old fast, but he does do some really funny stuff throughout the movie, and manages to make up for it.
I've often stated that I am not a fan of computer generated cartoons, in general. However, there are many exceptions and "Bolt" is one such exception. While not of Pixar caliber, I thought "Bolt" had top-notch animation. The characters had beautiful designs and they moved fluidly throughout. I had seen promotional material for the movie before hand, but I had no idea it would look this good. The great animation and character designs are coupled with two big-name stars in the leads. John Travolta lends his voice to the titular character, while Disney sensation Miley "Hannah Montana" Cyrus voices Penny, Bolt's person. Travolta, as usual, does a fine job, and so does Cyrus, who even gets her own musical number in the film.
The testament to the strength of "Bolt" comes with the fact that I went in with pretty decent expectations for it, and it managed to surpass them. Although it isn't as strong in the animation department as its Pixar counterpart of the year, "Bolt" has so many factors working for it that it can assuredly entertain the older crowd as much as, or possibly, even more than its target demographic.
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