Bolt - A DVD Review
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Bolt - The Movie on DVD - Synopsis
Bolt (John Travolta) is a cute American White Shepherd dog who is pretty much inseperatble from his owner, Penny.(Miley Cirus). He has been genetically modified with super powers, by Penny's father - which has left him with a black lightning bolt on his left shoulder.
Together, Penny and Bolt are on the trail of Penny's father, kidnapped by the evil Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell) - the man with the green eye and evil cat.
What he doesn't know is that he's the star of a hit TV series and Penny is an actress. In fact, he has no idea that everyone he encounters are actors and actresses, nor that he doesn't actually have super powers.
Bolt escapes from his trailer and by coincidence, hears the sound man messing with a tape loop of Penny calling for him. His ears prick up and he goes off to save her, but ends up instead in a box bound for New York City and has to make his way home with a de-clawed cat, named Mittens (Susie Essman), who spends her life terrorising the local bird population and Rhino (Mark Walton) an overweight and somewhat mad hamster in a ball.
On the way, Bolt has to come to terms with being away from his beloved Penny and the fact that his life isn't real whilst getting from New York City, back to Los Angeles.
Penny and Bolt
Penny is the only person Bolt really trusts and try as he might, he cannot believe that they have become separated.
He has saved her life on too many occasions to believe the scrawny cat's idea that she doesn't love him, but as the journey progresses, he has to find out the truth for himself.
Mittens
Almost immediately he arrives in NYC, Bolt teams up with Mittens, a cat who has been de-clawed and whilst she poses little threat to the bird life around where she lives, they don't know that.
They see Bolt as an excellent way of ridding themselves of the bane of their lives, so direct Bolt straight to her.
Using his superior intellect and the fact that Mittens is too weak to fight back, he drags her along with him to try and find Penny and the man with the green eye. Mittens has no alternative but to go with him wherever he goes, though often she doesn't want to...
Rhino
He's an overweight hamster who decides to go along with his hero and the rather cynical and very skinny cat, though neither Mittens nor Bolt are sure it's a good idea. However, he does go with them and this is where the adventure really begins.
Just another animated movie?
I don't think so.
This is a fresh look at what Disney was famous for in the sixties and seventies; the incredible journeys taken by animals in order to either find their owners or their homes, despite the overwhelming odds.
This not only caps those, but adds a level of humour its predecessors didn't have and because they're animated characters, what these things can do, outstrips the live-action actor-animals. At the same time though, this movie still retains the strange bedfellows ideal where animals not usually considered to be the best of friends, might become so.
The story is like many other road trips, with easy parts and hard parts, yet is no less entertaining for it. The humour is fast-flowing and the attention to detail is once again what we have come to expect from Disney.
I for one have no trouble recommending this to anyone who is either a Disney fan or a fan of CGI movies, such as Bugs Life, Cars or Toy Story.
Oh and watch out for James Lipton (Inside The Actor's Studio) as the director of Bolt's TV series. That was one I wasn't expecting!
