Movie Review – I’ll Never Be Allowed to Work with Children Again [Bolt]

About mid last year I was sitting in a cinema with my girlfriend at the time – enduring the monumentally poor advertising CineAds forces on movie-goers in Perth, waiting for the film to start (clearly the feature left a lasting inpression on me given I don’t even remember what we saw). However, once the static image of two dipshits cuddling to the accompanied voice-over (by a guy who sounded like he was recovering from having just been hit in the face with a shovel) advertising some cut-price funeral home was finished, I witnessed something so fantastically awesome I had dip my balls in liquid nitrogen to prevent a cataclysmic nad implosion.

WARNING: The movie trailer below should not be watched by anyone who –

• Has a heart-condition or pace-maker,
• Willingly watches “Packed to the Rafters”,
• Spends more than 5 minutes in the shower and uses conditioner (Unless it’s because they’re having a wank ofcourse, in which case FAP FOR GREAT JUSTICE!),
• Doesn’t believe Commando-trained hamsters could be an effective weapon against the Taliban

And with that out of the way – Ladies, Gentlemen and Hamsters, I give you the movie trailer of the the millenia.

Now that you’re mind has been sufficiently by Bolt’s life-altering trailer, I will attempt to review this cinemagraphic masterpiece.

Context
********
Before we get into the guts of the review, the one thing Mighty Ginge movie reviews always have, besides spoilers, is context – this one’s context is a story in itself.

Rewind to 3 days before I actually saw it – last Friday was completely consumed doing the last of my packing and getting my house ready for my send-off party. I was running around moving furniture, eskys, firewood and digging trenches for the old man. Needless to say, when 5:30pm finally rolled around I was already rooted. Then the drinking started – Kiran was the first to rock up around 7pm and I was already plastered when he did. More people trickled in, and we finally finished up around 3:30am.

Most people would sleep in, but since Mum was heading away for the weekend it was my last chance to see her before I left, I was back up at 8am (4.5 hrs total sleep in 24hrs). More packing and more last minute errands, and then gorgeous high school/metal chick (henceforth “GHS/M Chick” for short) calls me up to appologise for not seeing me at the send off, and whether I’d like to come out to see a band and each other before I left. And while the band didn’t happen, I did drink 3 cans of Mother (that’s a 1.5L) on an empty stomach, and didn’t leave GHS/M chick’s mate’s place till 2am. Race home for the very last of the packing, and at 3am decide to lay on my bed for “just 15mins” before Dad was to wake me at 3:15am.

When I woke at 4:30am (6hrs total sleep in 44.5 hrs) we both shat our pants, dumped everything in the back of the ute and flew to the airport. And I say “sleep”, because it was more like shivering unconciously while my liver started shutting down from the Mother. Luckily the flight was near empty so there were no lines when we got to the airport. After clumsily checking-in, saying goodbye to Dad, then shivering and hallucinating my way through security because I had 3 times the recommended maximum daily intake of caffeine, taurine and guarana in my system (I was sweating and freaking out enough to get a explosives swipe test and a full bag search); I managed to board on-time and the plane flew out.

And once the flight was settled in and seat-belt signs came off, around 7am Sunday morning, that’s when they decided to start Bolt.

So in short: I watched and reviewed a Disney film that features a delusional talking dog with John Travolta’s voice, and a psychopathic hamster with a taste for adventure; all after I’d had no more than 6 hours sleep in the previous 47, and was hallucinating to the point where I thought I could taste the colour purple from drinking enough energy drinks to re-animate Stan Zemank.

It was truly one of the most terrifying experiences of my life

Review
*******
First up, the character Bolt in the first hour of this IS a total badass. This film has more slow-mo in it than 300, just so you can actually see his badassery in action. He stomps on random hencemen, blows up helicopters and kills fucking EVERYBODY. Also, he has a black lightning bolt in his fur.

A BLACK MOTHERFUCKING LIGHTNING BOLT

And even once he’s off the show and into real-life he’s still a badass, just no longer a super-powered badass. He literally headbutts himself retarded on a steel locker trying to escape; he swings onto a moving train from a bridge; at one point he holds the cat over a freeway till she tells him what he needs, another he knocks out the whinging cat then drags her unconcious body around like he’s some kind of canine Sam Fisher. Paticularly the 10 minutes right after Bolt arrives in New York, which is essentially 10 minutes of Bolt running into fences, he’s a total badass. Some might descibe Bolt in the first hour as “the boss”. Other’s might say he’s “totally sweet” – it’s hard to say who’s right.

That’s a live mine Bolt’s running with there – he jumps over
the chopper and sticks it to the roof…. seriously

Unfortunately though, this is a Disney film and hence has to be fucked up by the weakening of the characters to fit Mickey Mouse’s bullshit “feel good/happy endings/family friendly” horseshit. After the first hour of badassery, Bolt suddenly turns into a whinging pansy, pissing and moaning about how hard it all is, sooking after his owner Penny, and generally being a fucking sad-sack. He winds up being the only emo I’ve ever seen who a) wears a white sweater, and b) has it permanently attached to his skin. Plus he develops this look which is errily similar to what one of my uncles permanently has plastered on his face – constant bewilderment, with just a hint of retardation. And as with everyone that suffers mild retardation, he lives out the rest of his now boring life with his family and friends.

Very disappointing character development.

His owner and TV show co-star, Penny, has an equally good start, only to fall victim to becoming a minor character when she’s convinced to let Bolt go and move on. Now I don’t want to say anything I’ll regret here, so I’ll simply say that Penny is the finest piece of animated jail-bait I have ever laid eyes on.

I will make Miley Cyrus my whore, just so I can
shut my eyes and pretend it’s Penny

Other potentially great characters (although none as tasty as Penny) that get the minor character treatment from Disney include: the New York pidgeon that’s dropping feathers and looks like a long-time methamphetamine user; Penny’s manager who after a hollow attempt to comfort her over the losing Bolt, tells her “I bet Bolt would want you to do the Tonight show interview”; the fantastically sarcastic cat that’s also in the TV show that mind-fucks with Bolt through the sunroof of Bolt’s trailer; and ofcourse – Rhino the hamster.

500 grams of pure psychosis

Oh Rhino – you were the reason I wet myself seeing the Bolt trailer all those months ago. The sheer concept of a psychotic hamster in a glass ball trying to kill people and cats alike is enough to give me a rather inappropriate chubby. Unfortunately, just minutes before Rhino’s appearance on-screen, the Emirates entertainment system decided to have an aneurysm and lose all sound – no sound for movies, music, nothing. It wasn’t my headphones or the seat I was in – it was plane wide. Unfazed though, I pushed on soundless.

Now this may come as a surprise to many of you but watching a Disney film with talking animals, while sleep deprived and tripping balls on caffeine, and then having the sound drop out is a rather interesting insight into your suppressed unconscious – you start to naturally fill in the conversation with all the depraved shit in your head. Now I obviously missed the sound to this next clip, but you wouldn’t want to hear the dialogue I imagined in it’s place.

And this was just unnerving

Rhino slips into stealth mode,
winning the “Creepiest Hamster of All-time” award

On the whole Bolt is a Disney film. I should stop getting my hopes up that Disney will actually release an animated film that features a truly demented character that doesn’t get nerfed to become family friendly – I reacted the same way when I saw the “Lilo and Stitch” too. The trailers had Stitch running around fucking up every classic animated film Disney has ever made (Aladin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid), only to be reduced to lameness and family values in the actual film. Bolt is a good clean laugh for everybody, it’s just a shame the family values side of things was shoehorned in for the last 20 mins about as subtley as Lindsay Lohan climbs out of a car.

See it for the Rhino scenes but don’t expect him to actually kill anyone, even with quotes like “I’m going to beat your pancreas with your spleen” or “There’s a guard, I’ll snap his neck”. Also, probably skip the last 10 to 15mins – you already know how it’s going to end, and Bolt really is pathetic toward the end.

Overall: 3 out of 5 Ginger Teabags

Oh, and if you don’t watch any of the videos above, arn’t interested in Bolt, or despise Youtube in general – please, make an exception for this one video. I’m pretty sure it’s impregnated me from just watching it.