Bolt
Rating: 3 Pulses
John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman
Directed by Byron Howard and Chris Williams
Rated PG
CGI cartoons are a dime a dozen these days. Every year, the studios release these films into the wild to fend for themselves amidst an increasingly inundated and weary parental public. Kids are a pretty easy sell, and Bolt should appeal to most all of them, but the true sign of a good children’s movie is its universal appeal.
That said, Bolt certainly satisfied the kid in me. As a puppy actor who is made to truly believe he has super powers by a film crew pulling a “Truman Show,” Bolt has plenty of action. The scenes from the show are as exhilarating as any summer popcorn smash, but when Bolt escapes the set to save his tween owner, Penny (it’s Miley!), his attempts at heroism are comically clumsy. Once Bolt discovers the real world, however, he must finally come to terms with his true nature, and this formulaic coming-of-age comes with, what else, a montage.
Helping Bolt’s self-actualization is the streetwise kitty Mittens (“Curb Your Enthusiasm’s” Susie Essman) and a couch potato hamster-in-a-ball named Rhino. Rhino’s spazzy idolization of Bolt yields some of the funniest scenes in the picture, and were it not for his offbeat antics, Bolt could have been just a stale comedy with some decent action.
All of this I enjoyed, but the adult in me yearned for some double entendres or at least a little satire. A studio head tells the show’s director that the show is losing it’s 18 – 35-year-old demographic because the stories are too predictable and always end happily, and this age group (apparently) doesn’t like being happy. At this, my ears perked up. I’m 18 – 35 and I don’t like happiness, maybe Bolt will break the mold a bit. Instead the movie decries predictability and then promptly gets on with its predictable plot. It was like Babe Ruth pointing to the stands and hitting a pop fly.
And that’s just it. Disney still points to the stands, banking on filmgoers forking over the cash on the off chance they’ll get another cartoon classic like Wall-e or Finding Nemo. Maybe it’s Pixar’s glaring absence, and perhaps making people love fishes and robots requires a little extra wit and imagination, but there is one thing in Disney’s favor: it’s easy to love a dog, especially when he can do some pretty cool tricks.
