Bolt appealed to me
when it had its cinema run, but like so many animated films, sadly I didn’t
actually get around to going to the cinema to see it. Signalling effectively
the transition of Disney Animations from ailing production house playing second
fiddle to Pixar to newly accomplished CGI studio in its own right with Pixar
mastermind John Lasseter at the helm, Bolt had a lot to prove – but
didn’t make anything like the impact of Wreck-it Ralph or Frozen...or,
indeed, Tangled. But for all that it’s likely going to be consigned with
Meet the Robinsons to ‘minor feature’ status for all time, it was a
whole lot better than, say, Cars II. And I liked Cars II much
more than most people did.
Something like Homeward
Bound meets Finding Nemo with the delusional-ideas-of-own-abilities
comedy from the first Toy Story, cute animal story Bolt has a bit
of everything – comedy, action, sweetness, emotionally heavy notes, and quite a
few sharp jibes at Hollywood, including an especially cutting and brilliant
depiction of a manipulative agent.
The story is that there is a
successful TV show called Bolt, which is rather like Inspector Gadget
but with Gadget and Brain merged. A little girl – who is even called Penny –
gets into scrapes because a terrorist organisation is after her, but has her
highly-intelligent dog for protection. Fortunately, Bolt has been enhanced to
gain super speed, amazing strength, heat ray eyes and an incredibly destructive
superbark. The real Bolt is the star of the show with his real owner, who
wishes he could just be a normal dog – but that’s not possible because the
director has mandated the dog truly believe what he’s doing is real. In other
words, Bolt truly thinks he has amazing powers, and has an incredibly sheltered
life – even for a dog.
The show isn’t doing so well,
so a network executive demands darker stories – which include a cliffhanger.
Leaving Bolt genuinely distressed for his owner leads to him escaping in a
rescue attempt and, as seems usual practice in this sort of story, getting
knocked out in the back of a delivery van and being taken right across the
States.
Bolt at first believes himself
depowered by the mysterious properties of styrofoam, but undeterred, goes to
look for Penny. He asks some pigeons, who lead him to a cat that has been
extorting them – cats being the underlings of the bad guy in the TV show. This
alley cat – who turns out to have a genuinely very sweet yet understated
backstory involving being left behind when her human family walks away, leaving
her to fend for herself after having been declawed, is forced along for the
ride, and after picking up a crazy fanboy hamster (who never seems to miss HIS
old human for a second), they make their way to Hollywood. But will there still
be a place for Bolt?
In animation terms, it’s just
a little dated and clunky now, especially the human characters, but the animal
designs are very strong and the acting matches well. I had no idea that the
actors were John Travolta and Miley Cyrus until the film ended, but both suited
their roles extremely well. Also fun to see Malcolm McDowell voicing yet
another crazy English bad guy.
I don’t know why Bolt wasn’t
more of a success. I guess that it needed a bit more scale to really draw in
the crowds, but it benefited from keeping things small and simple – in contrast
to its show-within-a-show. The humour was good, the music was good, the
emotional parts were good and the payoff was good. I guess it was just that
little bit too straightforward to stand out in the crowded market of kids’
American CG animated feature films.
I also didn't see Bolt when it came out in theaters; I remember it was around the time of Disney's "slump," when they had recently put out films like Home On The Range and Chicken Little, which made me not too keen on seeing their new movies right away. But I did eventually rent Bolt, and like you, I thought it was quite good. It's a very nice, cute story with likable characters, some good humor here and there, as well as good drama. Also, I think Bolt has one of the cutest designs for an animated dog ever XD
ReplyDeleteI think the reason it wasn't so successful was because there just isn't much in it for the general adult audience, unlike Disney's grand fantasy musicals or Pixar's innovative "out of the box" stories. As you said, it was a small-scale story, and unless you're a Disney/animation fan or really enjoy cute animals stories, I just don't see much in it that would grab a lot of adult viewers who take their kids to see it.
But yeah, I think it's one of Disney's underrated films. It's not an amazing one that I'd want to see a lot of times, but I still think it deserves more attention than it gets.