Day 48: Bolt

Bolt (2008)

Starring: John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, Mark Walton, Malcolm McDowell, Nick Swardson, Diedrich Bader, Chloë Grace Moretz, Greg Germann, James Lipton, Randy Savage, Kari Wahlgren, Grey DeLisle, J.P. Manoux, Brian Stepanek, John DiMaggio, Jenny Lewis

Songs: A John Powell score and a pop soundtrack

Bolt is the forty-eight film in the Disney animated canon.  It tells the story of Bolt, a dog who stars on his own television show but doesn't know it isn't real, so he thinks he has superpowers.  When he thinks his human, a young girl named Penny, has been kidnapped, he goes across the country to rescue her, with the help of a cat and a hamster.

When this movie began development, it was to be called American Dog and be about a dog TV star who gets lost in the desert and thinks he is still on television.  When Pixar and Disney merged and Lasseter took over animation, he felt the story needed to be improved, so the script was reworked and the film was completed in record time.  This was the first movie to be fully completed after he took over, and it is considered by many to be the start of a new era in Disney animation -- a new renaissance,

I had never seen this movie before today.  Honestly, the reason I didn't want to watch it was because of Miley Cyrus, whose voice is... grating to me.  Luckily I found that her speaking voice in this movie wasn't so bad and her character didn't have as much screen time as the publicity for the movie would have had you think.  All that aside, I did think the movie was cute.  I do enjoy a good dog story.  It wasn't the best Disney's done, but they've certainly done worse.  The animation also looked really good and the backgrounds are nicely done.

What I Liked: Bolt (the character, the dog) is pretty cute.  And that scene at the very beginning where tiny Penny adopts him as a puppy is really adorable.  Also I love the illustration looking art style of the closing credits.

What I Disliked: Ignoring the fact that the whole plot is a little bit contrived (since it is a Disney movie, after all, and that can happen), the pigeons and the hamster are all fairly annoying.  

Should You Watch This Movie: Eh.  I mean, it's totally watchable.  It's not a must see, but it's an all right way to pass an hour and a half.  So it's up to you.