The titular canine is a fuzzy white movie-star pooch voiced by John Travolta who comes to learn that his life as a superdog fighting the fiendish plans of the malicious Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell) alongside his beloved owner Penny (Miley Cyrus) is all a ruse and that he is, in fact, just an ordinary dog. The superdog wool has been pulled over his eye for the sake of a hit television series, whose director (James Lipton, amusingly stunt-casted) is convinced that Bolt’s amazing performance is reliant on his genuinely believing in what he’s doing. This poses a problem when Bolt is accidentally shipped off to Manhattan, after which he must make the long, soul-searching trek back to L.A. accompanied by a streetwise alley cat named Mitten (Susie Essman) and a fanboy hamster named Rhino (Mark Walton) who also believes Bolt to be the real deal.

In its constituent parts, Bolt is all been there, done that, but first-time directors Byron Howard and Chris Williams give it enough charm and good-natured humor to see us through the clichéd montages and predictable storyline. The film is also aided by the voice talent work, although it is not through the star power of John Travolta and Miley Cyrus, both of whom are certainly competent, but in no way memorable. As I wrote in my recent review of Kung Fu Panda (2008), above-the-marquee stars, while certainly helpful to the marketing department, usually add little to animated films, and Bolt is no exception. Rather, it is the scene-stealing Rhino, voiced by the virtually unknown Mark Walton (a Disney story artist who also voiced Loosey Goosey in Chicken Little), who makes a real impression. Much of Rhino’s humor is visual, especially in the way his ridiculously rotund little furball body is mirrored by the clear plastic ball in which he travels, but Walton’s infections intonations give the hamster exactly the kind of barely repressed exhilaration that sells the character.

In addition to Rhino, the film has some genuinely hilarious touches, including the recurring use of pigeons who speak in various regional dialects to mark points along the journey (the first group we first meet in New York talk like goombahs who just wandered out of GoodFellas, while in L.A. they’re a bunch of Hollywood wannabes babbling away in studio speak). Given the nature of Bolt’s profession, there is also plenty of room for large-scale action sequences, which despite their cartoonish nature are genuinely well staged and have there own brand of silly thrills. Aside from an unfortunate bit of stale Matrix-parodying involving Bolt leaping over a helicopter in slow motion, the action components are blessedly free of pandering to other movies via self-conscious references and are allowed to stand on their own (they are especially effective in those theaters showing the film in digital 3-D).

Even though it is essentially a show-biz parody, Bolt never gets too insider-ish and instead focuses on larger themes of coming to terms with oneself. As Bolt’s entire sense of being is thrown into disarray when he discovers that he cannot, in fact, fly or use his “super bark” to upend his enemies, he must realign his sense of self to something more earthbound, but infinitely more meaningful. If that sounds like a heavy dose of medicine, it is, but it slides down easily enough and never weighs down the story’s humor and sense of fun.

Overall Rating: (3)

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