'Bolt' needs to brainstorm

July 8, 11:43 AMCharlotte DVD ExaminerCorey Schwab

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         It’s beginning to feel like the senile, quaking Disney can’t do anything properly without the guiding hand of Pixar. The company seems to be caught up in its own nostalgia, trying to recreate the magic that kept it steaming for most of the past century. ‘Bolt’ is by no means a bad film, it’s just uninspired.
        The film begins with a dog named Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) who is the star of a science-fiction television series. In the show the dog uses his many super powers to protect a young girl named Penny (Miley Cyrus). The only problem is that when all of the cameras are shut off Bolt still believes he has super-canine abilities and that super villains are after Penny.
        When Bolt escapes his high-security trailer he explores the real world frantically, eventually crossing paths with an extortionist cat and a daredevil hamster.
There are a couple of issues here. First and foremost, the entire story arc is lifted directly from ‘Toy Story’. Anybody remember the delusional Buzz Lightyear? Secondly, Bolt and the cat spend a meal-sized portion of the film physically tied to each other, which is a conflict plot point that’s become so common it’s now mostly found in Saturday morning cartoons. The animation is good enough to pass as one of the films from Dreamworks, but the design is generic. Who cares about characters that look designed to hock pencil toppers from the backs of cereal boxes? The film was available in 3-D but not too many DVDs decide to package themselves with the glasses.                                                                                                                              (pictured: John travolta  AP photo/ Chris Pizzello)
        Despite all this the humor is quick and clever at times. There’s one especially entertaining recurring gag where we get to meet pigeons from several different areas and see the culture reflected in them. Oddly enough the best voice acting comes from the supporting actors, especially Diedrich Bader and Malcolm Mcdowell. You could do much worse than ‘Bolt’, especially if you’re just trying to hypnotize your children into silence for an hour and a half. Just hope that every time you hear the word ‘Disney’, the word ‘Pixar’ quickly follows.
        ‘Bolt’ gets a 6.5/10.