Wednesday 29 April 2009

Bolt 3D (2008)

Animations made in 3D seem to be getting more and more common, and no wonder because the technology allows the makers do so many wonderful things these days. However, the fancy technology is not the only thing that makes a good movie. It is also the old-fashioned story that needs to be good to engage audiences with full force. No matter how shiny the picture is, if the viewers don't feel satisfied with the characters and the story, the makers have lost the magic touch of movie making.

Bolt is one proof that the magic still exists. It is a story of a super dog Bolt (English voice by John Travolta) who battles against the bad green eyed villain Dr. Calisco (voice by Malcolm McDowell) with his human girl Penny (voice by Miley Cyrus) - in TV. Bolt does not know he is just an actor and that his super powers are not real.


When an evil cat comes laughing at the ignorant dog, he suddenly makes a mistake escape from the movie studio, and ends up accidentally in the other side of the continent in New York. In New York he meets Mittens the cat (voice by Susie Essman) and gets tied up with her in his plans on returning to Hollywood to save Penny from Dr. Calisco. However, why his super powers don't work, he can not understand.


Bolt and Mittens start their long journey accross the country and in one trailer park bump into Rhino the hamster (voice by Mark Walton) who is Bolt's number one fan and likes living inside a transparent ball. Rhino wants to join Bolt and Mittens, and the journey continues all the way to Hollywood.


As a dog loving person I knew that I would like this at least in some level, but was pleasantly surprised with the quality of both the story and the technology. The animation just looks plain awesome in 3D - all those animals hairs look so real and the 3D really works beautifully by making the movie an enjoyment to watch.

The animal characters are incredibly cute, but they still have their own personalities and some edge. The dialogue is witty and charming. The version I saw was dubbed in Finnish so I can not comment on the original voice actors. However the Finnish version worked incredibly well with all those nice dialects some of the supporting cast was using.

Bolt is highly recommended entertainment for the whole family - a story and characters that engage both children and adults served on such a beautiful plate.



Directed by Byron Howard, Chris Williams
Written by Dan Fogelman, Chris Williams
Cast (English voices) John Travolta (Bolt), Miley Cyrus (Penny), Susie Essman (Mittens), Mark Walton (Rhino), Malcolm McDowell (Dr. Calico)

3 comments:

Sari said...

Bolt was such a cute movie and even though we decided to watch this the "traditional way", without all the 3D-technology, it worked well. It would actually be funny to "hear" this film in finnish, in english it was also pretty darn good, with John Travolta and Miley Cyrus being in the leading voice-roles, as you already mentioned.

And being also a cat lover I really liked Mittens too and was just thinking about buying the Mittens plush toy they sell at Disney's. Of course we already have Bolt here... ;-)

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strike said...

Bolt is an animated movie about an American White Shepherd who spends his entire life acting as a super dog in a TV show .This is a very good movie...i watch bolt movie with my friends..and we really enjoyed the movie...