Tagline: “One unlikely team is on a mission to get back home…â€
Translation: And by “unlikely,†we mean a dog and a cat — not a robot and a cockroach, lest there be any confusion.
The Verdict: While Pixar plays box-office chicken with protagonists who get less adorable every year (cars, rat, waste-management robot … deer tick? Cancer cell?), Disney’s other animation studio seems to be going the more traditional route with this Cute Overload–style on-the-road movie starring a dog, a cat, and a wisecracking hamster. So, when families with small children are inevitably disappointed by Wall-E’s wordless, postapocalyptic, environmentalist, anti-consumerist tone poem this weekend, at least they’ll have Bolt to look forward to in November (let’s hope by then the kids have stopped crying). Plus, this thing should probably sell a few landfills’ worth of stuffed animals.