Review of Bolt (2008) by Matt S — 24 Mar 2011

This is the story of a dog named Bolt (John Travolta) who stars on a TV show. Though the twist is that the producers don't want Bolt to know that his heroic actions on the TV screen are actually fake, so that his acting ability will be as good as possible. One day in the real world Bolt is trying to save his "person" Penny (Miley Cryus), but Bolt doesn't understand that nothing is really going wrong, and he accidentaly gets shipped far from his home. Bolt now is on a mission to save Penny and he will be assisted by an old, grumpy cat with personal issues of her own, and a fat hamster that is a superfan of Bolt.

Well I must admit, I found this film terribly disappointing. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I read a lot of reviews that said this was great, and I just can't see it. I had a very hard time getting past the story. It just honestly just kind of silly and stupid to me. It was way over the top and really not that creative. I expect much more when I see Disney's label on a film.

With that said, I did enjoy this. I actually thought this was a good movie after I got into it. The animation was fantastic, which was a big plus for me. Especially on the animals, which were very well done, though I didn't love the human animation as much, but overall it was all great. The music along with it was also really enjoyable in my opinion, which is something I have come to expect from all Disney films.

The characters were excellent. They were what made the film really, they were likeable and funny for the most part, that is except for the cat. I found the cat, Mittens, very annoying, and did not feel any sympathy for her. Susie Essman's voice only made it worse. Though the rest of the characters I loved. Bolt was voiced by John Travolta, who I am a pretty big fan of, and he did a wonderful job with that part. The hamster, however, was obviously the best of them all. Mark Walton had me laughing out loud all through this film, and I absolutely loved the character of Rhino. The birds were a very nice touch as well. Miley Cyrus was not too good, but she didn't play a huge role so that worked out fine in the end.

Overall, the main problem with Bolt is that it suffers from a serious problem in the story, which is that it's terrible. This film didn't seem anywhere near as mature as other Disney greats in the past. However, Bolt has many good qualitites that ultimately make it a good film. The animation and music were both great, along with the fantastic characters. And I loved the voices other than that of Miley Cyrus and Susie Essman. If you have nothing else to watch and haven't seen this yet, I would give it a go. But if you are looking for great Disney animation movies you can do much better with recent and old films, rather than Bolt.