At the end of the day, "Bolt" is a sweet Disney family film, but its characters have pleasantly wacky attitudes. It has an intriguing plot that is kind of an animated version of "The Truman Show." Similar to Jim Carrey's Truman, Bolt (John Travolta) is living in a TV series that he thinks is real life. He believes he's a dog with superpowers, dedicated to saving his owner, Penny (Miley Cyrus), when he's just a hound with an acting job.

Penny would like to take Bolt home every night and let him be a real dog, but the show's director will not hear of it. "If the dog believes it's real, the audience believes it," he says.

A combination of accidents not only gets Bolt out of the Hollywood studio but deposits him on the mean streets of Manhattan, in search of a Penny he's convinced has been kidnapped and perplexed that his superpowers seem to be on the wane.

Soon the sarcastic cat Mittens joins Bolt and as they make their way across country, they're joined by a third musketeer, a deranged hamster named Rhino.

Together, not only does this strange troupe discover Penny's whereabouts, but Bolt learns how to be a regular dog instead of a superhero. At the same time, the film teaches kids lessons about friendship, using humor to avoid being trite.