Bolt

Watched Disney's Bolt last night, which I've been meaning to do for a while. I'm glad to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I first heard about this movie years ago, when they did a presentation at Pixar. At that point, the movie was still being called "American Dog." The movie has come a long way since then, and while I miss some of the thematics from the early pitch (it was intially an American Road Movie), the film has a pretty decent story and some likable characters. It lags in places, and has some cheap throw-away jokes littered throughout, but shows a lot more depth of character and story arc then some of Disney's other recent attempts.

The result is a cute movie with characters that actually matter to the audience, a story with some actual thematic weight, and an adventure that's fun for the whole family! Nothing particularly original - the themes of abandonment/finding out who you really are are pretty similar to Toy Story, the cross country journey reminded me a little of Milo and Otis (ha!).

So thumbs up to Feature Animation for their first post-pixar-acquisition film. Way to get back to story and character. Keep it going!