I'm back! It’s the Return of the King! And I am Aragorn, wow that's incredibly boastful. Anyway I wanna thank my buddy Dave and my correspondent Pandachi, I believe she will be back in the future, freshmen have more free time, but let’s get on with the show.
This week's (as if I update that often) feature is a non-Pixar animated feature from Disney, Bolt. I must say I had high hopes considering the last non-Pixar Disney animated movie Meet the Robinsons was incredibly good, and while this is not nearly as full of laughs it is freakin' adorable and has some decent action for the childrens.
Let’s get down to business. Bolt is a dog, but not just any dog a super powered dog, with laser vision, hyper speed, and a sonic bark, Thursdays at 8 this fall umm... well its Disney, so its gotta be ABC. Bolt ( John Travolta, Yeah I'm gonna start linking actors to IMDB.) and his sidekick Penny, or is it the other way around, must defeat the evil Dr. Calico, or as Bolt knows him, the green-eyed man. However, all of this is merely the work of writes. Actors and staff on his television show. Bolt is unaware that he is on a TV show and thinks that the forces of evil are really out to get Penny and that all his super powers are factual. When not on the set Penny (Miley Cyrus) wishes she could treat Bolt like a real dog, but is unable too because it will blow the brilliant method acting of the dog. The director explains everything is done for Bolt's sake, no second takes, every episode is a brilliantly orchestrated trick on the dog, seems kinda cruel if you ask me. Bolt is sorta like The Truman Show but with a dog, but only before the plot starts. Soon, Mindy the Network Executive tells the people on the show that adult males between the ages of 18 and 36 are not watching so the decide to do a cliff-hanger, clearly this was the shows first season... yes There's Bolt stuff everywhere, buses, billboards, even the studio's water tower has bolt on it, but plot conveniences aside..
Bolt is convinced that Penny is kidnapped by the Green-Eyed Man, and goes to save her only to get knocked out and shipped to New York, thus setting up the makings of a road movie, so we got that goin '. Bolt know needs to return to California to 'save penny' but he needs some help from the minions of the Green-Eyed Man so a movie about a dog needs a cat, enter Mittens (Susie Essman) a stray cat who ends up being tied to Bolt, both literally and figuratively, and is forced to take him across the country, thanks to a waffle house map. (Waffles, is there anything they can't do?). Along the way they meet Rhino (Mark Walton), a couch potato of a hamster who happens to be a hung Bolt fan boy, think Star Trek. Along the way Bolt finds out that he is not in fact super powered and must come to terms with this. There is a nice montage with just about the dumbest country song I ever heard: "Your home is the best for you because it's yours". Eventually Mittens attempts to convince Bolt to stay in Vegas because of her back story, but Bolt must go back to his beloved Penny. Eventually Bolt gets to do some real Heroics when things go wrong on the set of his TV show. In the end Bolt accepts his average life and becomes grateful for his new friends as well as quitting the show and living in the country with Penny, Mittens, and Rhino.
As far as the movie goes its pretty good as long as you are willing to suspend your disbelief that they have to do constant perfect takes and smoothly transitions everything all for the sake of the dog's acting, kinda redonkulous (first time I ever heard that in a movie). you also have to think that some person somewhere in their travels would think 'hey that's the dog from the TV show' or 'I should help that stray dog, find it's owner and what not' but the questions just needed be applied when the target audience is below teenage level. There's also the sleaziest, slimiest, most jack-hole agent I have ever seen in a movie, and I feel he did not get a proper comeuppance, although he does get one.
This is a movie more targeted towards children, that's to say it isn't as cross generational as say most of the Pixar films, but it’s a good movie for children. It does not pander or dance around injuries in fact its deals directly with Bolt's bleeding and injuries even if they don't make it at all graphic. The climactic scene isn't a quick easy save, in fact the main characters pretty much almost die. The movie is about growing up and accepting that sometimes things aren't what they seem and you just have to deal with it.
All in all I have to give Bolt a 7.7 probably due to my age I might not have enjoyed it as much as a 10 or 12 year old. Bolt is a movie for the whole family it’s enjoyable and fun and just adorable as hell.
Now a word about 3D:
I saw Bolt in "Disney Digital 3-D" which is the same price as a regular ticket but available at certain times and not every theater has it. I was handed the glasses by the podium usher and they where NOT cheap cardboard crap, they where fairly inexpensive plastic and there was a bin where you could drop them off to recycle them, but you could also keep them as I did. This doesn’t mean someone else will sue the same glasses just, recycling as in reusing the materials. I went in thinking that "Disney Digital 3-D" was just a gimmick used to sell tickets, and it kinda is, but it’s a good one. Watching the movie in 3D adds a magic to the movie going experience that it has been losing thanks to home theater and hi-def. You don't get the 3D when you rent the movie and watch it at home so it really makes it fun to go to the movies and get a separate experience than you would at home. There was a few times that it really got me and I jumped. The good thing about a normal movie in the "Disney Digital 3-D" is that you aren't going to get stupid shots where they meaninglessly throw something in your face just to use the 3D effect. I highly recommend trying it with your kids and it will add just a bit of the old movie magic.
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