Getting handed a pair of 3-D glasses is becoming more and more common these days. As though to prove the point, the new 3-D cartoon “Bolt” barely bothers to gimmick-ize its technique: no spears coming at your face, and only a couple of dangling-from-high-buildings scenes.
Mostly, this Disney production wants to involve you in a sprightly, hip (but not too hip) story. Like “Tropic Thunder,” this one’s about a movie actor who suddenly must fend for himself in a dangerous real-world situation.
The actor is a dog. Bolt stars in a TV series as a superhero pooch, but he doesn’t actually know it’s a TV series. He thinks he really has laser-beam eyes and a “superbark” that can collapse walls.
This premise is so impossible (even for a cartoon set-up) that you basically have to close your eyes and swallow hard and just decide you’re going along with the thing.
Have you swallowed? All right. Bolt escapes his keepers and finds himself on a cross-country trek to return to Hollywood. His learning curve on realizing that he’s merely mortal is slow.
When he’s not in the company of humans, Bolt can speak. (This is a long tradition in talking-animal movies.) He has the voice of John Travolta.
Bolt is accompanied by two traveling companions, an alley cat named Mittens (voiced by Susie Essman) and a hamster called Rhino (Mark Walton). Rhino’s energetic hero-worship of Bolt generates about half the movie’s comedy.
The movie does have its funny moments, and it uses the road-movie format for some very striking animation. There’s a fire scene with a billowing smoke effect that might have you admiring the computer animation more than worrying about the actual situation.
The film also offers up a variety of pigeons, who comment on the action. The best of these is a trio of New York-based birds who sound as though they just got through auditioning for the latest Scorsese mob picture.
Maybe it was the slick showbiz backdrop or the somewhat cookie-cutter characters, but “Bolt” doesn’t really distinguish itself in any special way. Young audiences will find it thoroughly enjoyable, but it doesn’t scamper onto that next plateau where animated movies such as “The Incredibles” and “Finding Nemo” live.
Except for the hamster. I fully expect that hamster to appear in his own TV spin-off series — no superpowers needed.
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