Bolt (Blu-ray)

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In any other year, "Bolt" would have won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. But "Wall-E" was so unique and charming a tale that the concept of a dog trying to save his owner seemed stale by comparison. I mean, how far is that from "What's that, Lassie? Timmy's in the well?"

Well, the concept itself may be as old as a snack-cake wedged between the couch cushions, but what first-time directors Chris Williams and Byron Howard do with it would have been a cinch to win a statue in a year when they didn't have to compete with a love-struck robot who has a blue-collar work ethic.

I'm not even talking about the animation, which is phenomenal. There are scene after scene in "Bolt" where you simply admire what the artists and animators have done, whether it's a field of prairie grass and Queen Anne's Lace or the rolling hills of California that are rendered so realistically you'd swear it was an outtake from the famous "Bullit" chase scene. No, I'm talking about taking a pretty basic concept and somehow finding ways to make it surprising along the way.

"Bolt," as everyone probably knows by now, is a TV super dog (John Travolta) who's paired with his "person," Penny (Miley Cyrus), in Bond-like adventures that have them going up against Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell), the Green-Eyed Man, and his evil cat. What's surprising, though, is how realistic that opening James Bond sequence plays out, and how, when Bolt uses his "super bark," it peels the pavement off in chunks and sends debris flying with a slick special-effects look that's worthy of the live-action "Spider-Man" trilogy. It's the juxtaposition of realistically rendered backgrounds and cartoon humans and animals that give "Bolt" an impressive visual design.

Like the hero of "The Truman Show," poor Bolt has no idea that his daily cinematic life isn't real. The director (James Lipton) takes great pains to hide boom mikes and cameras on dollies so that the dog brings a kind of urgent realism that's never before been seen on television. Unfortunately for the dog, that means being shut up like a prisoner inside his trailer after each day's shooting, rather than going home with Penny. But when the director takes some heat from the network because the 20-somethings aren't tuning in, and he tries a cliffhanger, Bolt escapes, thinking it urgent that he rescue Penny from the Green-Eyed Man.

Williams co-wrote the screenplay with Dan Fogelman ("Cars"), and it has the same sort of journey across the country that leads to self-discovery. Even moreso than "Cars," this film is populated with interesting characters along the way. Like the old Disney live-action "Incredible Journey," the core group is a trio of unlikely alliance: a dog, a cat named Mittens (Susie Essman) who's taken along by Bolt as a hostage, basically, and a hero-worshipping hamster named Rhino (animator Mark Walton) who joins them in his exercise ball. The main characters have enough personality to hold everyone's interest, with some nice energy propelling this forward and plenty of snappy lines that will appeal to adults as well. There are plenty of fun details, too, which become a part of the storyline. Example? As Bolt breaks out of his trailer and sees what he thinks to be the "throne" of Dr. Calico pulling away from him, he tries to crash into a window but only bounces backwards into an open shipping box topped with Styrofoam peanuts. Cleverly, those packing peanuts are incorporated into the script as the equivalent of Kryptonite. Searching for an explanation as to why he can no longer pick up a car with his mouth, crash through brick walls with his head, super-leap, super-bark, or karate chop humans with a well-placed blow to the collarbone, Bolt decides that the Styrofoam must have weakened him. And presto!, you have both a running gag and a plot element.

The filmmakers get the same mileage out of a bird joke, with three pigeons in New York (where the box ends up) talking to Bolt like New Yorkers and displaying both a sense of street smarts and pigeon dumbness. When he returns to Hollywood, eventually, there are three pigeons again-only ones that talk tofu (so-to-speak) and display a West Coast attitude. The focus is never squarely on the main action, either, as when Bolt and his sidekicks end up having a confrontation with the law and we get as much of a sense of those characters isolated lives as we do comedy. It's that kind of narrative sleight-of-hand and attention to detail that makes "Bolt" a cut above the average animated feature. But we have seen the basic premise before, and if you strip away the garnishes and think animals instead of vehicles you can certainly see similarities to "Cars" as well.

But it works. The voice acting is superb, the characters are engaging, the journey itself is full of small surprises, the animation is among the best I've seen, the attention to detail is incredible, and there's just enough emotion to make us care. "Bolt" is rated PG for "some material" that may not be suitable for small children, but if your kids can deal with a few moments of peril and a Timmy's-in-the-well moment near the end, there's nothing here that will bother them. "Bolt" is a great family movie because it's smart enough for adults and generally innocuous enough for children.