Byron Howard, Chris Williams, PG (2008)
It’s been a long time since a Disney animation had smarts and comic detail such as this, and that is testament to the involvement of John Lasseter, the Pixar boss whose creative brief now includes the parent studio. The (now 2-D) tale of a film-star dog who must face the fact that he cannot really fire laser beams from his eyes, it crackles with Pixar-style thrills, spills and in-jokes. John Travolta voices Bolt and Miley Cyrus, plucked from another branch of the Disney empire, is his human owner. But the real star is Rhino the hamster sidekick, splendidly voiced by Mark Walton, a storyboarder at Disney who beat professional actors to the role. Rhino is Bolt’s No 1 fan, and his geeky splutterings, delivered from inside a plastic hamster ball, are the stuff of comedy gold.
(Retail/rental DVD, TS £20.45, Blu-ray, TS £29.35, out Mon)
DVD Extras
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Rhino returns in a short film, while a featurette on voice artists includes Walton’s explosive reaction to being told he had got the part. Plus a making-of, deleted scenes and music videos