Funny, but

Rating: 4/10 (14 June 2009)

I really do have a problem with movies, that try to be SO clever, when in fact they are not. I won't spoiler anything big, I'll only talk about the beginning of the movie, but I still wanted to warn people who are not ready to read anything about the movie, before they go watch it or rent it.
The problem here is, that while we get treated to an action movie, without apparent cuts, without any obvious special effects (yes I know it's animated), the fact that the first couple of minutes are a movie within a movie is a big cheat. Not because you might get fooled to think that is the actual movie, before they pull the rug under your feet (there are other movies, who had these beginnings too), but because everything that happens there just couldn't happen.
I know it's animated, so in fact it couldn't happen either way and then it's a movie, so it isn't real by definition. But still the main Dog (Bolt) does stunts, that he isn't able to do. Leaps/jumps as if gravity didn't exist, just to have a problem jumping in the "real world" ... I can't laugh about that, because it ain't funny to me, because in the end, he couldn't jump that far in the first place.
So everything that gets build up in the first minutes is a big cheat, which doesn't work and therefor isn't funny in the progress of the movie, when all the "superpowers" get smashed (even the stunt driver explanation doesn't work and don't get me started on "where do they put their cameras? Everywhere? With a focus on everything?) Again, that might seem short sighted for some, but I couldn't enjoy the movie as much as I would have loved to (and the Hamster is really mostly funny, plus a "nice" cat). The flow of the movie isn't right, if things get established ... but actually aren't established, because they are lies/cheats. If you can overlook that, you might enjoy the movie more than me (I still gave it 4/10, because it has it's moments, that aren't inspired by some false predicament in the beginning)