Media

Home Theater Movie Renter's Guide - December, 2011

"Bolt 3D" (Blu-ray 3D) - Reviewed by Adrian Wittenberg

Synopsis

Bolt (John Travolta) is a star super dog that protects his owner Penny (Miley Cyrus) from the forces of evil and Dr. Calico (Malcolm Mcdowell).  In the movies Bolt has extroardinary powers and since the studio always keeps him on the set, he doesn't realize he is just an actor and has no special abilities.  One day, he believes Penny is being kidnapped and in the process of trying to rescue her, he escapes the set and accidentally gets shipped to New York in a box.  There he meets up with an alley cat named Mittens (Susie Essman) and a hamster named Rhino (Mark Walton) who both help him try to get back to Hollywood to rescue Penny and learn about his true identity along the way.

Commentary

This was an entertaining film for not only its visuals but also for the characteristic voice acting and the premise that Bolt was convinced he had super powers such as a super bark.  The reality of what his true abilities were was often used as a sucessful comedic platform. John Lasseter was the executive producer and ensured that the story was delivered effectively and the film had a lot of charm.  The 3D effects in the film were mainly used to add depth and dimension to the scenes rather than create any extreme perceptions.

Technical

Bolt 3D is a brighter film with strong contrast in most of its scenes that make the colors look vibrant and pop out of the screen.  You can practically count each strand of dog hair on the models and overall the detail level is excellent.  The 3D effects are tastefully used and were implemented as good as any 3D film this year.  The audio on Bolt 3D comes in the form of a DTS 5.1 HD Master audio track and it was excellent, giving home theater systems a full course of bright highs, crushing lows, and spacious surround effects.

Extras

Mostly standard fare for extras on this disk like deleted scenes and behind the scenes material. Some of them were pretty funny and other's brought insight into the creation of the animation.