Bolt

Saw Bolt, the animated film about a Rin Tin Tin-type show where the anthropomorphic protagonist does not realize it's fake. His ignorance of the actual movie-ness of his job is explained by a maniacal director who is really into canine method acting. I thought the film would mostly be about the reveal of the dog's non-super-hero-dom. This reveal, I thought, could have gone all harsh reality ala Monster's University or self-sustaining psuedo-self-delusion ala Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Instead, it's mostly a road movie.

This is unexpected and unfortunately signals an slightly half-assed-feeling muddiness which dogs (ho ho) the film throughout (I think this sort of comes with the road-trip-style movie though. What fun is a road trip if each episode is the same?) Anyway, indeed the bulk of the film concerns Bolt's efforts to get back to his beloved co-star Penny after being shipped across the US really quickly (you see what I mean about the half-assed story.) Also, I don't want to get into the ending, but some villains get off scott free and other villains are (I feel) not so much villainous as just callous. Their agent, specifically, clearly is just trying his darndest to advance Penny's career (as his job dictates!) and is just being kind of manipulative about it. (Also, tangent, but big props for not making the stage mom some tyrannical Patsy Ramsey-type. That's one cliche they didn't fall into.)

All of that said, I loved this film. I went in with low expectations for some reason and I maybe let it get to me a tad more than I should have (or more than it would get to the average viewer anyway) but it's really hard to remain unmoved by the scene where Bolt and a stray cat discuss the fickle nature of human affection (this conversation could have strayed into some real dark areas. They even pulled some punches in the delivery, keeping relative control when the character could have broken down completely.) I even liked the dumb accent-based jokes with the pigeons, so great was my good-will for this movie. (My favourite joke: a dog-catcher is pepper-sprayed. He writhes on the ground shouting "Spicy eyes!") The greatest source of good-will-pathos is Bolt's slow realization that he's not super-powered but that being a dog with a loving owner pretty much rules. The astute viewer (or at least the viewer who shares my private obsessions) will also note that this film deals with the nature of deception and delusion and so of course it makes the point that if a lie is an inspiring lie then maybe it's not really a bad lie after all (this is a work of fiction after all.)

The philosophical quibbles I have with this film (with respect to justice and so forth) will probably bug me more on repeat viewings and the episodic nature of road-trips probably will too, but for the first watch around, it's an emotional, exciting, fun film about adorable fuzzy wuzzy animals who are earnest and naive and just want to be loved. Heavy on emotion and action but light on slapstick and sarcasm, it might not be the best for very young kids, but is pretty good for an adult, so whatever.