The Same Warmth and Playfulness of a Young Dog
a dog lover, mother of 13 year old daughter, Movie Reviewer, a storyteller, A Big Giant Sap, a believer of fate
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NOV
28
2008
Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) is the canine star of an action adventure series, and his costar is a young girl named Penny (voiced by Miley Cyrus). We're pulled in initially to the adventure as it's set up to look liked this young girl, her father, and her dog are going through a tragedy as her father is abducted by an evil villain, The Green-Eyed Man. Yet once the film pans out, we find that it's really just an action adventure story and all of them are actors.
However, Bolt is the only one not let in on the secret. He believes that he is a super hero dog with super hero powers bestowed on him by Penny's father, as he moves about saving their lives each day. The people behind the television show believe it's in everyone's best interests to keep him in the dark, feeling he needs to believe all of this is really happening. They believe that if the dog believes it, the audience will believe it. Their latest ratings tell a differnet tale, and the network representative warns the director he needs to "stop worrying about the dog's method acting and start worrying how to stop 20-year-olds in Topeka from changing the channel."
Like most dogs, Bolt just lives to be with his owner, but he sees his owner as young Penny and not the studio. She leaves the set every day to go home, but Bolt gets locked in his trailer, not understanding why he can't go with. He's tricked into believing that she has been taken by the villain from the television series, and he breaks out of the studio. Still working to find Penny, he hooks up with a cat who extorts food from pigeons, Mittens (voiced by Susie Essmen), and a hamster in a ball, Rhino (voiced by Mark Walton), who happens to be an obsessed fan of his, just this side of Kathy Bates, .
Bolt finds more adventure in his pursuit to get back to Penny than he ever had on the TV show, and he soon finds just as much of a meaningful relationship with Mittens and Rhino than he had with Penny. He also is eventually forced to confront the fact that he doesn't really possess super powers, which saddens him a lot as he doesn't know what has been a lie and what hasn't.
I'm not sure what message they're trying to tell us with the evil people running the show that won't let this dog just ... be a dog, and find the ratings to be more important than his livelihood, as movie studio execs probably feel much the same way with box office receipts. Perhaps it wasn't intentional. Yet, I do think that the warmth and fun found in this movie is very intentional.
Bolt is recommended by LauraBelle
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