Check Out the Trailer

For those that don’t know the history of BOLT’s production, it started as a project titled AMERICAN DOG written and directed by LILO & STITCH helmer Chris Sanders. It was the second feature left over at Disney that the new Pixar heads had to work with. To make a long story short, Sanders was removed from the film and directors Chris Williams and Byron Howard were given the task of reworking the entire film in 18 months, which is ridonculously short for an animated feature. I write this as a bit of background and to make the point that this isn’t Sanders’ film; it’s Williams and Howard’s film. So that’s how it must be judged, not what it could have been in some alternative universe. Considering how BOLT was made, it’s surprising that it works so well.

Bolt (John Travolta, LOOK WHO’S TALKING) is a TV super dog. Like THE TRUMAN SHOW, he has been raised to believe that everything in the show is real. His owner is the young girl Penny (Miley Cyrus, TV’s HANNA MONTANA), who despite being an actress truly does love Bolt as her own pet. But then Bolt accidentally gets shipped off to New York City, believing that his arch nemesis Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell, TV’s HEROES) has kidnapped his beloved Penny. Desperate to find the evil man with one green eye, Bolt seeks out the most obvious evil collaborator — a cat, any cat. Poor Mittens (Susie Essman, TV’s CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM) fits the bill and Bolt forces her on a cross-country adventure back to Hollywood. Along the way, they meet up with Bolt’s obsessive fan Rhino the hamster (Mark Walton), which convinces Mittens that Bolt not only doesn’t have super powers, but also is delusional.

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