Bolt: recommended

We watched the Travolta-voiced Pixar movie Bolt this past weekend, and enjoyed it immensely. We went with Tanya's mom Karen (hi Karen!), and we all had a blast, young and old.

The flick has a lot to recommend it:

• First of all, there's the premise. Bolt is a superdog, whose powers exist only on TV, but he doesn't know that. Yes, this is similar to Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. No, that's not a problem.
  
• Next, there's the buddy movie thing that Pixar does so well.
• The animation is another step forward. The backgrounds and objects are more realistic than ever. But they've kept a lot of stylization in the people and animals, thereby avoiding any uncanny valley issues. Bolt, for example, has a puppylike enormous head, despite being five years old.
• Travolta is understated and dignified.

I enjoyed it almost as much as Chloe did, although I could not match her guffaws when the hamster named Rhino stole the show. She's into hamsters at the moment. We're on our third hamster, actually.