User Reviews

I've read that Bolt is the first computer animated feature to come from Disney Studios since Pixar's John Lasseter took control of it, and it's easy to see the Pixar presence in the movie. John Travolta and Miley Cyrus provide the celebrity voice talent for the movie, about a dog who stars in a superhero TV show but who is just as unaware that he's an actor as he is that he's a dog.

Remember at the end of A Bug's Life when they animated together some outtakes where shots from the movie were messed up because of various mishaps on set? I thought that was one of the most charming ideas in an already fun and entertaining movie, and in Bolt they have taken that and centered an entire movie around it. Bolt and Penny are a team battling the evil green-eyed man, who has kidnapped Penny's father and are attempting to extract information out of him.

Between shooting sessions, Bolt lives in a trailer, unaware that Penny is going home to her real life and that the world returns to normal when he's not around. He believes that he is exercising extraordinary restraint in not using his superpowers to teach a lesson to a couple of wise-cracking alley-cats who tease him through the roof vent of his trailer at night.

Through a series of unfortunate events initiated by an encounter with the cats, Bolt finds himself accidentally shipped in a box to the east coast, from where he must travel across America in the real world in his quest to become reunited with Penny.

In watching a movie about a cute superhero who suddenly finds himself in the real world and must gradually accept the heartbreaking news that there's nothing special about him, it's impossible not to think of Buzz Lightyear, who suffered through exactly the same situation in Toy Story almost 15 years ago, but even though this seems to point to a disappointing characterization weakness in the movie, it is the characters who are the most interesting.

There is nothing particularly fresh or interesting about Penny, who is really nothing more than a catalyst to drive Bolt's adventure, and even Bolt himself is giving us a predictable performance of a dog who thinks he has superpowers, but the characters that he meets along the way are the best things about the movie.

He encounters a hardened alley-cat in New York named Mittens who has been bullying pigeons into making regular food donations to her (a clear homage to the bullying grasshoppers in A Bug's Life). She and Bolt become tied together with a leash and he forces her to help him get to California. But it's the even smaller characters that are the most interesting and charming. The Italian-American pigeons that Bolt meets in New York, who just know that they know his face from somewhere but can't quite place it, are incredibly well-animated and cleverly voiced.

But my favorite is Rhino, a superfan of Bolt's TV show whom Bolt and Mittens meet in a trailer park on their way to the west coast. Rhino will be a popular favorite character from the movie. He's overcome with excitement at meeting his hero, and it provides a unique comedic situation when both he and Bolt think that Bolt has super-powers, while Mittens must pacify them in order to get what she wants. She has been dragged scratching and screaming into this situation, and her disbelief at her miserable luck provides a good portion of the movie's comedy.

The family content of the movie plays up the ongoing cats and dogs rivalry that I don't remember seeing this directly portrayed since the relatively disappointing 2001 film Cats & Dogs. In one of the movie's more amusing sequences, Mittens teaches how to beg, and he successfully gets one trailer park family after another to offer food to his puppy-dog begging skills. When Mittens tries it, she gets a frying pan flung at her.

The movie knows how to work the comedy of a computer animated feature, which is why it was nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar and is also why it's a lot of fun, but beneath the clever screen-writing and occasionally amazing animation, the standard-issue cartoon-messages of never abandoning a friend in need make the rest of the movie pretty un-spectacular.

Bolt deserves to be nominated as one of the best animated features of 2008, but it also deserves to come in behind Kung Fu Panda, the second best animated feature of the year, and WALL-E, which will win.

I saw this on a flight out west, so picture and sound are impossible to judge and comment on, but I was able to enjoy the cute story. It is an old one, about the bond between two people being stronger than the situations around them. The two "people" in this story are a little girl and a dog.

As the movie begins we see a fantastically powerful and faithful dog named Bolt (voiced by John Travolta). As the scene goes on we eventually realize that we are seeing the filming of a TV series on a set. We further see that Bolt doesn't really have any special powers but the scenes are set up to fool even Bolt, and he thinks (as a dog may be able to "think") that he really is a super dog.

As script fate would have it, Bolt finds himself in the real world, and accidentally in a shipping box headed across the country to New York. There he escapes and soon finds out his super powers are not super anymore. Much of the middle of the movie involves Bolt's escapades in trying to get back to Hollywood, and partner up with Penny (voiced by Miley Cyrus) who he thinks is his real owner instead of just an actress.

Penny also considers herself more than just an actress, and missed Bolt, while studio bosses try to convince her that a different dog can play Bolt, since "the show must go on."

SPOILERS: Bolt eventually makes it back, with the help of a cat and a hamster in a plastic bubble. At the studio Bolt makes it just in time for a big fire in the soundstage, one that the fake Bolt runs from. Meanwhile the real Bolt rushes in and saves Penny. They are reunited, more than just two actors.

Bolt is a fresh, light hearted family movie. Unfortunately though, it never raises itself above that level, it never delves into the greatness of Finding Nemo or Monsters Inc.

However, it does show promise from the outset with fresh animation and a brilliant cast, perfectly pressed into the moulds of their characters. John Travolta is by far the stand out as Bolt, the naive canine, he provides the character with a depth that not many animation films seem to have nowadays.

Miley Cyrus is, surprisingly, good in her role as Penny, the dog loving kid who can't stop until her four legged friend is found.

The story is adequate, again with depth which isn't at the moment a necessary feature of an animated flick.

Apart from a good cast and a decent storyline, Bolt falls somewhere in between Monsters Inc and Cars; whilst it may do its job as a good family film, it won't set your soul alight.

Bolt is a light-hearted family movie, which provides entertainment and shows how a dog cannot do without 'it's person.' The story centres around Bolt, a white German Sheppard, who has spent his entire life on a set of a television show, in which he portrays a 'superdog.' As a result he believes that all the events that happen around him are real. When he is accidentally shipped from his home in Hollywood to New York City, he embarks on a cross-country journey so that he can be reunited with his owner and co-star, Penny. Bolt soon finds himself with two companions, alley cat Mittens, and a TV obsessed hamster Rhino.

The characters throughout are engaging and easy to enjoy and relate to. The effects in this movie are well executed, so much so that everything in the movie looks so realistic, yet does not contradict with the fact that it is actually an animation.

Even though the story is centred around Bolt, it is hard not to mention the two unlikely accomplice's Mittens and Rhino, who to me somehow steal the show. Not only are they both entertaining with their witty comments and sarcasm, but at the end of the day they are very endearing. And it is a Disney film, so it's nice to see them all have a happy ending, as an extended family together.

It is hard not to make comparisons after watching Bolt. A superhero who suddenly finds himself in the real world and must accept the heart-breaking fact that there is nothing special about them; I don't know about you but all I can think about is Buzz in Toy Story.

As with all classic Disney films, there is an underlying positive message to give to all. In Bolt's case the message is be true to oneself and find your own inner hero. But in a completely different direction this is like Disney's version of The Trueman Show. Watch and you will see.

The first minutes of the movie are actually dark; living into something you thought was real but was not. Bolt thought he was a superhero but he was just an ordinary dog- cute and cuddly and used. When I realized what is going on I kinda wished he was actually what he though he was. He was played really nice by the people he trusted, with all that busting power and importance- he was just a dog.

But in fairness, this kiddie movie lifted up as it goes by. The atmosphere became the usual element of a kiddie movie which is adventure and fun. Animal cartoons "anime" is a product of frustrations of the reality, when one rich person cannot deal with reality; he resorts to something like cartoons. No dogs can really talk; special effects on a living actual dog might be insensibly costly.

This movie made me rethink a hero does not have to the big stuff heroes always do which was presented at the beginning, because all that big stuff hero thing are fake. (I'm talking about charities and pictures and media.) The real hero is the one who is not afraid of doing the right thing even if all the people turned their faces away from him. Like Bolt we know at the end of the movie.

This is not another hero movie, this is presentation of reality. The hamster in a cage, the cat who at first abused the weak- lives in a camouflage, the actress, the birds, and Bolt. You know what I mean.

I never saw Bolt at the cinema and at the rate they're churning out these animated movies there's no way you pay to see them all, so I generally wait for these to be shown on TV. On watching Bolt, I felt that this was very similar to most modern animated movies of the last 20-25 years, the story is ok, the humour at times feels forced and cliched, but almost none of these movies are timeless, no matter how many Hollywood A-listers they rope in to do the voces. I admit that Bolt did hold my interest right up to the end, so that's a win for me and I did like the idea of The Truman Show-esque feel where Bolt really believes he has superpowers and is not just the star of an action series and the whole Lassie Come Home middle section where Bolt is separated from his "human" and traverses the country to get back to Penny has funny parts but it's not Toy Story or Monsters Inc funny. It's easy to see why kids would love this and would want a Bolt of their own, I mean seriously, who doesn't love a cute dog and who wouldn't want to see a loyal pet reunited with its owner? The pigeons were the funniest characters in this. With them only having bit-roles, similar to the Penguins from Madagascar, they didn't become boring. Overall I'm glad I didn't pay to see this, but it's worth seeing. P.S, please don't put your hamsters in those ridiculous plastic balls as seen in this movie, it's unnatural and it terrifies them.