It’s amazing to think that same Disney juggernaut many fears has a near monopolistic stranglehold on the American film industry was turning out material this bizarrely misaligned to its audience just a decade ago.
Bolt is the story of a tv super dog, think a modern-day Lassie or maybe the beloved Thunderbolt the TV hero that inspires the 101 Dalmatians’ clan, but with cool superpowers; super bark, superspeed, etc. Bolt’s owner is his co-star the pre-teen Penny, reminiscent of Kim Possible, who he loves and tries desperately to save each episode. But Bolt doesn’t know that his entire world is fabricated, a tactic used by a show runner to manufacture elite method acting in his titular star. When Bolt sees Penny threatened by the evil Dr. Calico he jumps into action believing that she is really in peril, in what is apparently a truly epic if not highly improbable way to film a television show.
But we learn that the show itself is in trouble, the corporate suits want darker storylines to attract the coveted 18-34 demographic and to attract them Bolt is put in increasingly perilous situations. Believing that Penny has been harmed he breaks out of his confines and goes on the typical Disney quest to find and save his beloved owner. He crosses paths with a series of increasingly sarcastic animal buds, Mittens a protection racket running streetwise city cat and Rhino a Bolt fanatic hamster. But Bolt soon learns that in the real world he has no super powers and to get back to Penny he might have to put his actual life on the line.
Audience surrogate animal lead? Check. Plucky female co lead? Check. Quest story with cast of comedic sidekicks that brings the cast to a group no larger than five? Triple check. So, what’s not to like about a film that clings so closely to the successful Disney structure that has worked for films from Beauty and the Beast to Pinocchio? Well basically everything else is a total shit show.
Kids films work best when the audience (kids) are expected to understand simple emotions. Classic example of this, The Lion King. The range of emotions in the main character roughly goes like this: I’m excited to be king, I’m ashamed I got my dad killed, I’m having fun with my new friends, I have to go back and help those I love. Its simple…it’s clean…Its easily understood by the ideal child audience. Bolt on the other hand expects its child audience to be able to follow: Bolt believes he is a superdog but is actually not, his friends understand that he does not understand he is a superdog but know that they can use his belief that he is a superdog to do something that they want him to do like get food for them. Or another example: Penny is sad that Bolt is lost and wants to wait for him to return to continue the show but the corporate suits want her to move back into production with another Bolt lookalike. She initially rejects the idea but under pressure of the many people who will lose their jobs agrees to go on with the show. Bolt see her performing with the new dog and because she is such a good actress convinces him that she has moved on. This is the sort of multi emotion acting scenes more at home in All About Eve than an animated film for 10 year old’s.
Also, as a whole there is just way way way too much Hollywood industry talk in this film. This movie has agents, the afore mentioned corporate suits, demographic talk, and references to storylines that seem to fit better on the set of Entourage. The film even starts with an extended 10 minute faux in medias rex sequence meant to fool the audience into thinking that the character of Bolt is actually a superhero enhanced dog. It’s the most complex opening animated sequence that I’ve seen since weeping through the first 15 minutes of Up.
Along this same line one of the major fails of this film comes through the comedy. Disney helped to reinvent children’s comedy in the late 80s early 90s with a very simple formula. Slapstick plus a funny voice. Think Sebastian in basically any second of “Under the Sea” or the luao distraction by Timon and Pumba in Lion King. But Bolt decides to abandon most of these types of jokes in favor of quicktalking jokes that feel more at home in a third rate His Girl Friday:
Bolt: What is this red liquid coming from my paw?
Mittens: It's called blood, hero!
Bolt: Do I need it?
Mittens: Yes, so if you want to keep it inside your body, where it belongs, you should stop jumping off trucks doing eighty on the interstate!
Basically, none of the above joke works. Firstly, Blood not a typical joke for a kids movie, but whatever maybe that’s meant to be more for the adults. But when you take a look at this dialog sequence you start with a funny premise: the main character not understanding what blood is because he’s a movie star. But then its followed up by a sarcastic statement “it’s called blood, hero!” Kids, especially pre-teens don’t understand sarcasim…in fact most teenagers have trouble executing it properly. Because you are expecting someone to know that the character doesn’t mean what they are saying but rather the opposite and the only indication of that is voice inflection. Not the easiest for the standard Disney audience. But then we get an even more promising setup, “Do I need it?” Bolt doesn’t even follow the sarcasm… and apparently doesn’t know what blood is. But the payoff we get left with is a complex three comma punchline that is spoken like the speaker is going 80 on the interstate. This is just one example but the film is chockablock full of stuff like this. Needless to say, my daughter while watching it with me spent most of movie dead faced without so much as a smirk.
In the end they managed to make a kids film that confuses kids with a lot of nods to adults that would easily bore any adult that isn’t watching it with their now confused kid. But at least the animation mostly holds up nearly a decade after the film came out…that’s more than I can say for most 2000s animated films.
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Comments 1 - 14 of 14
Yubieblah
Truman Show with a dogMartax
really cute and funny movie, the hamster rhino was great :)Dewsions
This had a really interesting storyline, definitely unexpected and different from the other Pixar animations. Really liked this a lot.danisanna
Cute little story. Ya got to love our canine and feline friends.CzarTheDragon
That hamster is epic. :'Dletschat6
Great job!The only thing.. It was so WEIRD seeing a little girl with Miley Cyrus's voice, lol.
Unfortunate Synopsis
No expectations. Pleasantly surprised. One of the better post-Golden Age Disney films.DynatiaCydonia
cute, it reminds me of Toy StorySrFrenzy
BORING!.chunkylefunga
Another average Disney movie. Oh how I long for Disney to return to their former 90s glory!Joker of Gotham
Bolt looks like my dog3.5/5
eiriknielsen
“There’s a guard” [beat] “I’ll snap his neck”It’s amazing to think that same Disney juggernaut many fears has a near monopolistic stranglehold on the American film industry was turning out material this bizarrely misaligned to its audience just a decade ago.
Bolt is the story of a tv super dog, think a modern-day Lassie or maybe the beloved Thunderbolt the TV hero that inspires the 101 Dalmatians’ clan, but with cool superpowers; super bark, superspeed, etc. Bolt’s owner is his co-star the pre-teen Penny, reminiscent of Kim Possible, who he loves and tries desperately to save each episode. But Bolt doesn’t know that his entire world is fabricated, a tactic used by a show runner to manufacture elite method acting in his titular star. When Bolt sees Penny threatened by the evil Dr. Calico he jumps into action believing that she is really in peril, in what is apparently a truly epic if not highly improbable way to film a television show.
But we learn that the show itself is in trouble, the corporate suits want darker storylines to attract the coveted 18-34 demographic and to attract them Bolt is put in increasingly perilous situations. Believing that Penny has been harmed he breaks out of his confines and goes on the typical Disney quest to find and save his beloved owner. He crosses paths with a series of increasingly sarcastic animal buds, Mittens a protection racket running streetwise city cat and Rhino a Bolt fanatic hamster. But Bolt soon learns that in the real world he has no super powers and to get back to Penny he might have to put his actual life on the line.
Audience surrogate animal lead? Check. Plucky female co lead? Check. Quest story with cast of comedic sidekicks that brings the cast to a group no larger than five? Triple check. So, what’s not to like about a film that clings so closely to the successful Disney structure that has worked for films from Beauty and the Beast to Pinocchio? Well basically everything else is a total shit show.
Kids films work best when the audience (kids) are expected to understand simple emotions. Classic example of this, The Lion King. The range of emotions in the main character roughly goes like this: I’m excited to be king, I’m ashamed I got my dad killed, I’m having fun with my new friends, I have to go back and help those I love. Its simple…it’s clean…Its easily understood by the ideal child audience. Bolt on the other hand expects its child audience to be able to follow: Bolt believes he is a superdog but is actually not, his friends understand that he does not understand he is a superdog but know that they can use his belief that he is a superdog to do something that they want him to do like get food for them. Or another example: Penny is sad that Bolt is lost and wants to wait for him to return to continue the show but the corporate suits want her to move back into production with another Bolt lookalike. She initially rejects the idea but under pressure of the many people who will lose their jobs agrees to go on with the show. Bolt see her performing with the new dog and because she is such a good actress convinces him that she has moved on. This is the sort of multi emotion acting scenes more at home in All About Eve than an animated film for 10 year old’s.
Also, as a whole there is just way way way too much Hollywood industry talk in this film. This movie has agents, the afore mentioned corporate suits, demographic talk, and references to storylines that seem to fit better on the set of Entourage. The film even starts with an extended 10 minute faux in medias rex sequence meant to fool the audience into thinking that the character of Bolt is actually a superhero enhanced dog. It’s the most complex opening animated sequence that I’ve seen since weeping through the first 15 minutes of Up.
Along this same line one of the major fails of this film comes through the comedy. Disney helped to reinvent children’s comedy in the late 80s early 90s with a very simple formula. Slapstick plus a funny voice. Think Sebastian in basically any second of “Under the Sea” or the luao distraction by Timon and Pumba in Lion King. But Bolt decides to abandon most of these types of jokes in favor of quicktalking jokes that feel more at home in a third rate His Girl Friday:
Bolt: What is this red liquid coming from my paw?
Mittens: It's called blood, hero!
Bolt: Do I need it?
Mittens: Yes, so if you want to keep it inside your body, where it belongs, you should stop jumping off trucks doing eighty on the interstate!
Basically, none of the above joke works. Firstly, Blood not a typical joke for a kids movie, but whatever maybe that’s meant to be more for the adults. But when you take a look at this dialog sequence you start with a funny premise: the main character not understanding what blood is because he’s a movie star. But then its followed up by a sarcastic statement “it’s called blood, hero!” Kids, especially pre-teens don’t understand sarcasim…in fact most teenagers have trouble executing it properly. Because you are expecting someone to know that the character doesn’t mean what they are saying but rather the opposite and the only indication of that is voice inflection. Not the easiest for the standard Disney audience. But then we get an even more promising setup, “Do I need it?” Bolt doesn’t even follow the sarcasm… and apparently doesn’t know what blood is. But the payoff we get left with is a complex three comma punchline that is spoken like the speaker is going 80 on the interstate. This is just one example but the film is chockablock full of stuff like this. Needless to say, my daughter while watching it with me spent most of movie dead faced without so much as a smirk.
In the end they managed to make a kids film that confuses kids with a lot of nods to adults that would easily bore any adult that isn’t watching it with their now confused kid. But at least the animation mostly holds up nearly a decade after the film came out…that’s more than I can say for most 2000s animated films.
mook
Interesting idea, well animated and quite watchable, but I think I would've preferred a film of the tv-show-within-a-film. 6/10.Follow me on Twitter @LastFilmSeen
gasparin
I slept during the movie. =)