Bolt
November 27, 2008
John Lasseter's first major undertaking as head of Disney Animation was to fire veteran director Chris Sanders from this talking animal project and replace him with a team of Disney second-hand writers and animators, Byron Howard and Chris Williams, and apparently it worked, for rarely does an animated film undergo a complete restructuring and come out as perfectly enjoyable as this entertaining gem. Bolt (John Travolta) is the dog star of his own action-adventure television show, in which he battles villains, ninjas, and evil cats trying to kidnap his owner Penny (Miley Cyrus), but when the cameras stop rolling, Bolt isn't allowed to be a normal dog, it'll ruin his perception of TV reality says the director, and our hero lives alone in a trailer. But one day he escapes when he thinks Penny has really been kidnapped, gets accidentally shipped to New York, and spends the remainder of the film traveling the country with a jaded ally cat named Mittens (Susie Essman), who tries to teach the pooch the ways of being a real dog when he finds out his powers are fake, and a hamster-in-a-ball named Rhino (Mark Walton), the funniest character of the film with his aggressive wonderment and fan-boy fascination with Bolt the TV star. Aside from being a spot-on satire of television production and the pressures young stardom (the casting of Cyrus is especially referential), the nominal road plot, getting back from B to A through impossible adversity and adventure, which we've seen in everything from “Finding Nemo” to “WALL-E”, is quintessential Disney, as Bolt and Mittens, enemies to start, learn the meaning of need and friendship, relying on each other, and the hilarious hamster, to complete their dangerous cross-country mission. The animation is terrific, almost Pixar worthy, especially a beautiful sequence on the Las Vegas strip, the voice talent is great, and the story is alternately exciting and touching (Mittens' monologue about being abandoned by a loving family is three hankie heartbreaking); Disney's best animated feature in over a decade, and I'm not just saying that because my cat's name is Mittens too, it's a genuine complement from a dedicated animation fan. And Mittens is adorable, of course.
By Adam Suraf