Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at Bolt

*Sigh* Let’s just get this shit over with. While this is by no means the worst movie I’ve covered for Deep Dive Disney, it is by far one of the most uninspired and unoriginal. This film seems to be the Disney movie that time forgot and after watching it for the first time not twenty minutes ago as I’m writing this, I can confidently say that it has been forgotten with good reason. I was not looking forward to this film. I almost decided to skip it altogether and even put up a poll on my Twitter to see if anyone cared if I did. Well, apparently this movie has at least some fans and they apparently all follow me on twitter because here we are. Let’s just get into it already. Bolt tells the story of a girl named Penny and her beloved dog named Bolt. Bolt and Penny are the stars of their own TV show where Bolt fights bad guys using his superpowers. The problem is, Bolt is tricked by the studio into believing that the show is actually real since the assholes making the show feel that this makes things feel more real. So, essentially what we’re dealing with here is a Truman Show scenario but now with a healthy dose of animal cruelty. After a misunderstanding, Bolt chases a prop truck and ends up stranded in New York City, being exposed to reality for the first time. With the help of a cat named Mittens and a hamster named Rhino, Bolt must make his way across the country and back to Penny, confronting the fact that his life has been a lie along the way. Well, you people voted for me to do it, so here’s fucking Bolt.

Main Character:

Initially, I was going to compare Bolt to Thunderbolt the Wonder Dog from 101 Dalmatians and while those two characters certainly share more than a few things in common, I think that Bolt is more accurately compared to another famous Disney character. Think about it. A TV superhero who learns that his entire life has been nothing but entertainment for children and goes through an existential crisis when he learns that his life and powers are actually an elaborate lie? Almost beat for beat this character's arc is the same as that of Buzz Lightyear from the first Toy Story movie. All we're missing is a scene where Bolt puts on a ladies hat and gets shitfaced. Did Disney think we wouldn't notice or something? There's not too much to say about Bolt because well, we know this story because we've seen it done in other movies. I guess the character isn't that bad overall, just not terribly original, a theme of this movie it would seem. Bolt is voiced by John Travolta and while I'm not normally a big Travolta fan, he does fine I guess.

Villain:

I'm just going to say it right now. Pretty much anyone who works on Bolt's show is a villain in this movie. Penny gets a pass because it's made clear that she actually cares about Bolt's wellbeing. Everyone else, SHAME! These assholes routinely subject this poor dog to things that would cause people severe PTSD all for the sake of entertainment and they take painstaking steps to make sure that the dog believes it real. I'm honestly shocked that Bolt is as well adjusted as he is. Also, how does this even work. If the dog is supposed to believe that all of this is real, how do they handle things like rehearsals, reshoots and stuff like that? None of this makes any goddamn sense. Special mention goes to Penny's Agent who's the closest thing we get to a main villain in this film. I'd have said that about the psycho director played by a surprisingly entertaining James Lipton cameo, but he only gets one scene and then quickly fucks off for the rest of the movie. Penny's Agent on the other hand is a douchebag throughout, constantly showing that he cares more about publicity than about the mental health and wellbeing of his client, even when Penny is being hauled away in an ambulance. I cheered when Penny's mom pushed his ass out of a moving car.

Side Characters:

There's not much of anything to say about Penny, she's just a generic little girl who loves her dog.

There are these three pigeons we meet New York City who are literally just the Goodfeathers from animaniacs. I found this amusing.

Mittens the Cat starts off as a very cynical character. Bolt only forces her to come along on his journey because Bolt assumes she's working for the villain of the TV show who has a Blofeld-esque penchant for cats. While she doesn't like being dragged across the country against her will, he does over time grow to care for Bolt. After she figures out that Bolt is a TV dog, she is the one to break the news to him, but also shows him that being a normal dog isn't all that bad. Essentially, she's the Woody to Bolt's Buzz Lightyear. That's not a bad thing, I actually found Mittens to be my favorite character, it just means she fills a specific role in Bolt's unoriginal story. While I liked her story about being abandoned by her previous family, hence why she's living on the street, I did not like how it was used to force a third act breakup that feels like it only actually happened in order to pad out the run time.

Finally, there's Rhino the Fanboy Hamster. I hated Rhino the Fanboy Hamster. I wanted to shove Rhino the Fanboy Hamster in a microwave and watch him splatter. This character was so annoying and added almost nothing to movie other than being how Mittens is able to figure out that Bolt is a TV dog witch could easily have been done without him. This character outstayed his welcome and it really pissed me off.

Memorable Scenes:

I laughed exactly once in this movie. There was a scene where Bolt and Rhino have to save Mittens from an animal shelter and in the ensuing chaos, one of the guards gets pepper sprayed and starts writhing on the ground yelling "SPICY EYES!" That, and only that, got a chuckle out of me.

We're skipping the Story section. I could care less about this movie's themes and morals. The only actually lesson I got out of this movie was DON'T TRUMAN SHOW YOUR FUCKING DOG!!!

The Dark Disney Factor:

This movie seems weirdly anti-cat, seeing as how it depicts the two cat actors on the show (question: why are THEY not given the Truman Show treatment) are shown to be complete dickhead trolls and the film takes every opportunity to beat the living hell out of poor Mittens. Seriously, throughout much of the first half of the film, Mittens is getting beaten up, thrown from moving trains, dragged by Bolts leash and other unfortunate things. After a while the whole things just feels seriously mean-spirited. I don't know what a cat did to these filmmakers, but it must have been pretty bad.

Final Thoughts: Another short article, but unlike with WALL-E, this was absolutely because of the low quality of the film. Like I said, I've seen worse, but I would be hard pressed to say that I've seen less inspired. This movie takes zero risks and recycles plots from far better films. In the end, I suppose if you put a small child in front of this movie it's pretty inoffensive and they'll probably enjoy it, but as an adult, skip this one. Next time, I watch one of the most beloved Pixar films for the very first time. Join me as I go, Up!