"Bolt" Movie

"Bolt" (quality rating: 7 out of 10)

(Animation feature)

Directors: Byron Howard, Chris Williams

Screenplay: Dan Fogelman, Chris Williams

Voices: John Travolta, Susie Essman

Time: 1 hr., 36 min.

Rating: PG (some mild action and peril)

A holiday reliable for the tots.

"Bolt," playing in 3-D in some theaters, will also keep parents reasonably amused. It's devoid of any special new style. Rather, this is yet another talking animal animation movie with ultimately flawless technique, if not the Pixar Studio productions finesse. Its action is so smooth and real.

And y'know, there's a question at this point in time that bothers me. Like,...um...why?

Why? Well now, recollect for a moment the Looney Tunes classic characters Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck. And the visual design behind them. Taken as a whole, there was an intended cartoonishness of the visuals, that is, their disconnect from reality was actually part of the comic effect. The characters and the technique were not supposed to be reality; they were supposed to be essence - lampoons of the way people are. The action, especially the exaggerated mishaps that befell them (like in the roadrunner cartoons), had to do with what would happen to people if the laws of physics did not exist (like when Wile E. Coyote was hammered into the ground or blown up, then was seen in the next scene none the worse for wear). There was no audience requirement, no yearning, for seamless motion, toning, shadow effects and other ironed-out action, like as if what we were seeing on the screen in these cartoons was somehow imperfect.

By contrast, modern animation characters now require for their funniness witty dialogue, dramatic story elements, context and situation to ignite laughs. Those characters of old had irony, wit and urgency built in. They were immediately funny. You were chuckling before they even did anything.

So here's "Bolt," dressed impeccably in modern digital dress.

Gee, you sure don't want to see a poor doggie disillusioned.

But that's the story of Bolt. As a hit TV show star, this white hound lives in a world of staged adventure, peril and scripted villainy - he can demolish a company of soldiers, a fleet of trucks and helicopters as he leaps and soars. All by special effects, of course. As such, he's been notably ill-equipped to descend into the real world with real everyday events. And that's just what happens. Inadvertently, through his owner Penny's inattention which has caused her to be distracted by a sleazy movie agent, he finds himself being shipped off from Hollywood destined for New York City.

The problem here is that he'd always thought that his great feats and special powers that had been set up for him on the TV shows were real, that he actually had those capabilities. Now he's finding that he's been deluded. He's going to need some aid as he seeks out just whom he is.

Help will arrive in the person of a traveling companion, Mittens, who is a burned out, abandoned and emaciated housecat, and, in an RV camp, Rhino, a TV-obsessed hamster who rolls around in his plastic ball. Slowly but surely he'll realize that he doesn't need all those superpowers to be a hero.

First off, Mittens advises him that nothing he thinks is real is really real. He must learn to be, well, - a dog. Like he should enjoy sticking his head out of car windows to catch the breeze. And certainly to mix with other dogs. And it's kinda cute when they get into a pre-fab home in transport in which Mittens can show Bolt what Man's Best Friend is supposed to do around the domestic scene.

Mittens' arguments with Bolt are vigorous but lifeless of screen energy. That's all they are, bicker and banter. And what's all this about Bolt's fear of Styrofoam? Whatever, it ain't funny.

Still, this is all for the kiddies. Let 'em have fun with it. There's a lot to be said for innocence.

Marty Meltz

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